


Conflict Without

by aguardian



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: AC3, Boston, Davenport Homestead, Frontier, Gen, New York, Valley Forge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 06:37:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 38,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aguardian/pseuds/aguardian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had been born into conflict, both within and without, and his duties lay tangled as spider strands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Never Again

**Author's Note:**

> Just something of an introduction for now. It's been a while since I've written, so I'm still finding my feet.
> 
> This will probably delve into the parts of the game I found either interesting or overlooked; particularly revolving around Connor and Haytham.

It had been many months since his feet had felt this path, his lungs this air, but his very spirit remembered every detail of the landscape. The gentle slope of the valley tilted him back into its embrace as if he were a lost child; and perhaps he was one. The wolf within him ran Kanatahseton’s forests with an assured step, bounding between fallen timbers and crags as if it had never left, but Connor’s thoughts were turned inwards, away. 

He was no longer the boy that had left this valley, not after he had taken up the Creed of his Order, and the burden of its cowl and promises. The blades he knew well, the obligations even better. It seemed even now he could hear the voice of his mentor - and that of a hundred ages of Assassins before him - preaching of a responsibility to humanity. 

Though Connor resolutely carried that weight, and eagerly set on the chance for all to be free, the whisper of a different voice ever clung to him. He knew - had always known - that the well-being of his people was what came foremost, was what had driven him to push both body and spirit to breaking. 

He held this resolve close to his chest, often looking back upon that day of smoke and screaming, and vowing silently to the lost, _never again_. However, despite this, it had only been a few days past that he had realized how long he had actually been away. That morning, he had donned his white robes and had caught the flash of an enemy at the manor window. 

He had tensed for a split second, the wolf of him bristling and coiling into a guarded stance, until Connor had realized that he had merely caught his own reflection. In hindsight, the alarm had been foolish, but not quite unwarranted. 

The change he had undergone at the old man’s hand had been slow but unrelenting, and it seemed that not even he had realized the drastic difference. Barely a wisp remained of the child who had once carelessly chased both friends and birds through the trees, equally convinced that he could catch either if he so chose. The simpler life was behind him, but he was Ratonhnhake:ton still. Where it mattered, nothing had changed. 

A coil of gray twisting into the bright spring sky caught his attention, and he smiled, warmed even by the faintest sight of his village coming into view. He was a distance from it still, but the sense of homesickness he had not even realized he held seemed to gentle, the line of tension in his shoulders easing. 

However, it seemed that peace was not to be found, not even here. As he took a few more steps along the path, his wolf’s ears flattened, a growl rising in its throat as it caught distant voices and the barest scent of violence on the air. Connor lifted his head, stone still as he listened, before taking off at a sprint in the direction of the disturbance. 

The crunch of many boots on dry twigs seemed alien to these forests, the unfamiliar sound seeming an invasion in itself. The Assassin’s eyes fixed upon the ground as he passed trampled nettles and overturned stones; saw the tangle of stumbling footsteps pressed into deep mud holes. Those who had made these tracks had blatantly missed the easier foot trails winding between the trees, marking clearly that they knew little of the landscape. 

He slid to a halt behind a wide trunk, pressing his shoulder into the bark as he peered into the small clearing. There were three of them, dressed in the weathered cloth of frontiersmen, and carrying muskets that had seen better days. Only one of the men was speaking, but his words were oddly slow and quiet, as if addressed to a skittish horse. Connor frowned in some confusion, until he noticed the slight figure standing on the opposite side of the glade. 

The familiarity of the scene stung him, and he found his heart heavy with old wounds. The other Mohawk was only a young girl, barely a few summers, and it seemed that she had not yet run for safety merely out of curiosity. She stared upon the group from behind a felled tree, taking in the spectacle of glinting bayonets and strange words without a hint of comprehension, but with innocent fascination in her eyes. 

The Assassin circled the edge of the clearing unseen, guarded despite the assurance that the strangers did not seem to mean any harm. Mistrust gripped him, as did the memory of his own first encounter with the colonists, and it took only the barest hint of a threat - the slightest impatience from the frontiersman as he gave up trying to coax out the young girl and instead took a step towards her - for the wolf in him to snap. 

Connor flashed out from behind his cover, making little sound beyond that of wind through the fallen leaves as he moved to bodily intercept the advance. The frontiersman walked directly into his shoulder before he even noticed that he was there, but the wolf did not yet raise a hand against him, only waited tersely for the fumbled reactions. 

The nearest man flinched back as if burned, giving a startled oath as he stumbled away from the phantom. One of the other two managed to fire a shot, but his reflexes were honed for startled deer or onrushing bears, not a single figure, and Connor turned easily to avoid the misfired round. He rushed forward two steps to press against the first man again as another musket was lifted, and closed the distance between the gunman when he hesitated to shoot his ally. 

The Assassin seized the barrel of the outstretched gun, forcing the frantically loosed bullet into the dirt. He shouldered its wielder backwards before he could free his weapon, and pivoted smoothly to meet the last loaded musket with his drawn tomahawk. A flick of the curved metal snared the bayonet, and directed the round harmlessly into a branch above. 

Connor lunged past the man as he staggered, catching his shin with one boot and crumpling him easily to the ground. The Assassin straightened calmly in the center of the glade, regarding the paralyzed three with narrowed eyes, before turning his back on them and looking instead to the child. 

He crouched to eye level with the young girl, asking her quietly in their language if she was hurt. The first syllables came somewhat haltingly - it had been much too long since he had used anything but English - though she smiled at him nevertheless, assured him brightly that she was fine. 

He allowed a small answering smile as he bade her to return home, before standing again, his eyes hardening in an instant as he drew his attention to the frontiersmen. They glanced between each other, evidently torn over whether to run or stand their ground. 

“I can think of no business you could have with a child,” Connor stated, disregarding their blank expressions when he addressed them instead of tore into them, as they so feared. “If you have no other reason for being here other than your own amusement, I suggest that you leave.” 

The Assassin watched the momentary silent argument between the three as they exchanged glances and mimed gestures, vying over who would answer. Finally, one cleared his throat, speaking slowly, “We didn’t mean anything wrong. We just wanted to talk to her, ask where the Mohawk village was and see what it looks like--” 

“Lies.” The accusation was short and sharp, and the frontiersman swallowed his next words with a rather lost look. Connor only glowered at them, the wolf in him hackling as the bloodied aura leaked out from the man’s attempt at an innocent expression. “Do not think yourselves the first to come here in search of game. If you wish to hunt these lands, no one will stop you. Just remember that you share it with others who are your equals, not wildlife to goad or prod at.” 

“I... yes, sorry,” the frontiersman managed, blinking in some confusion. He took a step back, eying the motionless Assassin for a cautious moment before he and his companions turned to head deeper into the valley, choosing a path that would allow them a healthy berth from the Kanien’keha:ka village. 

Connor returned his tomahawk to his belt, shaking his head as the three departed. It seemed he could barely go a day without needing to ready a blade. Almost in answer to his wry thoughts, a rustle sounded from behind him. He slid reflexively into a lower stance as he turned to face the threat, the hilt of his hidden blade cold in his palm. 

“You had no right to do that,” the accented voice told him roughly, the English just passable. “We do not need protection from your kind. We can take care of ourselves.” 

The Assassin blinked, slowly easing out of his stance as his wolf sniffed the air curiously and gave a bark of recognition. The other Mohawk approached him on cushioned steps, eying him suspiciously as he quite obviously tried to see past the shadows of his hood. Obligingly, Connor pushed back the white cloth, only slightly dismayed at how easily he had been mistaken for a colonist. 

“Kanen’to:kon,” he greeted the man mildly, and his brother took a startled step away; the flash of bewilderment in his eyes familiar. Connor had barely recognized him in dress or build, but the openly shown emotions - the clarity of thoughts flicking across his face - were there still. Even when they were children, Kanen’to:kon had been unable to hide secret or opinion from anyone. 

Connor could not help but smile, warmed simply by the other’s grin as he finally recognized him and addressed him enthusiastically by name. The Assassin returned the companionable grasp on his shoulder in kind, and Kanen’to:kon good-naturedly asked him why it had taken him so long to visit. 

The wolf almost felt a pup again as he once more ran the lands alongside his brother, telling him of the years he had been away. Connor left out some details, but even the little he shared seemed a fable; and for that moment, he almost wished it were just that, a story. Merely a tale the elders spoke over sparking bonfires, not a life and responsibility he was meant to carry and bleed for. 

However, when he had finally finished speaking, Connor realized it for himself; it was not one voice that pulled at him, but many. He was Templar by blood, Mohawk by breeding, and Assassin by vow. At the moment, they did not clash, but such winding lines could not stay isolated forever. 

For now, his ties to his father were but unanswered promises, and his people’s protection fell well within his Order’s goals. But would the boundaries remain clear when the sky filled with the smoke of battles, both new and ancient? By then, would it even be possible for one to answer the cries of so many? 

He had been born into conflict, both within and without, and his duties lay tangled as spider strands. The winds of the impending war called for the wolf to fulfill his promises, myriad as they were; but if anything, Connor was never one to run away if he was needed.


	2. Mark of Honest Men

His travel to Boston was uneventful, which irritated Connor for once, as his indignation still roiled fresh just under the surface, as his wolf spirit snarled at the wind. Kanen’to:kon had seemed preoccupied throughout the few hours he had spent in the village, and it had taken an amount of coaxing for him to finally share the problems that their people had faced while Connor had been away. 

Though the frontiersmen expanding their hunting grounds was nothing new, it was the rising number of a different sort of colonist that had cause for concern. For the past few months, caravans of well-dressed nobles had been arriving at the village, presenting increasingly ridiculous offers for the land that the Kanien'keha:ka had long tilled and settled. These men weighed with coin and foreign silks had been persistent, not seeming to understand that not everyone would clamor and fall over one other in chase of money. 

Finally, after too long of being denied, the men had turned instead to threats. A name had been given this time, William Johnson, along with a proclamation that he would obtain their land with or without their consent. That had been the final word, and the nobleman bearing the announcement had brushed a speck of earth from his embroidered jacket and had walked away. 

Connor already knew Johnson by face and standing, as he did all the others that the old man had placed upon the basement wall and had researched in detail. Johnson was an enemy to be eliminated, Achilles ever insisted, but the young Assassin still held to the possibility that death was not the sole method of achieving their goals. 

But either way, such open theft of his people's home - particularly one that saw it to be _just_ \- could not be tolerated. 

His temper cooled somewhat over the long walk, though the Mohawk still had little patience for the steadily growing crowd as he wound closer into the city’s heart. He ignored the slight unease he felt at the enclosing density of the city, holding to the fact that it was here that his target lay, or at least it was to where his lapdogs reported. He knew of a handful of warehouses that Johnson owned, but he could not be sure which he was most likely to be at, if any at all. 

Still, tracking down the man felt no different from hunting game, and the wolf in him set upon the trail with little trouble. Connor kept his head down as he simply walked the streets and listened, filtering through complaints of dissatisfied workers, of cargo slipping past the quotas, and of Johnson’s men terrorizing the East district as they collected payments. 

He found himself in Boston’s harbor almost without thinking. The stench of salt and the cries of the sea birds were only slightly distracting as he walked the water’s edge near the brewery, and he had nearly made it to the long pier without incident when two workers emerged suddenly around a corner. Their worn clothing spoke them to be common laborers, perhaps stealing a moment of relaxation between shipments; but they walked as hunted men, glancing over their shoulders and quite obviously fighting the urge to break into a run. 

The Assassin turned to avoid them, pressing back against a nearby wall as they shuffled past without seeing him. He frowned after them, his wolf having caught on the scent of mingled fear and excitement, of adrenaline and guilt – the very mark of honest men falling to crime. He had just considered tailing them, when he heard the explosion rip the air. 

It was not much, not enough to be heard outside of the district, but the ignited gunpowder still lashed fire and thunder into the sky. Connor glanced back in time to see the two vanish into a side street, and recalled the muttered threats of Johnson’s workers as they compared meager wages; threats that were clearly no longer simply words. 

It seemed that this was not the first act of vandalism and vengeance, however. Connor looked to the distance and saw similar trails of black threading into the sky, marking a few other small fires. His suspicion was further confirmed when - barely a minute after the reverberated explosion had faded - soldiers bearing familiar crimson pushed through the heavy smoke to investigate. His wolf snarled a warning, and Connor flicked behind a nearby stack of crates to avoid their eyes. 

He waited for them to pass before setting quietly on their heels, and slipping into the same alleyway the vigilantes had entered. The Assassin released a quiet breath and trusted his next steps to his Sense, choosing sharp turns around the small maze of alleys until he all but walked into one of the men who had caused the explosion. 

He slid back a step as the ragged man before him asked lightly, “Did you need something, friend?” His tone was intended to be threatening, though the whisper of reluctance was clear to the Assassin's ear. This was a gentle man, merely pushed by circumstances beyond his control. His actions were not unjust or uncalled for perhaps, but foolish.

Connor straightened and stated bluntly, “You have already attacked three of William Johnson’s warehouses, but unless you number far more than I estimate, you will never get anywhere near the main one.” He cocked his head slightly. “Particularly after you gave yourselves away by striking the smaller ones first.” 

The vigilante stared at Connor for a long moment, his eyes flicking over the many weapons pressed to his belt and back, and perhaps realizing that he knew the feeling of another’s blood on his hands. “...Would you have done it differently?” 

“Yes, one man would have been enough,” the Assassin replied, not quite answering the question. He paced to the opposite edge of the alley, matching the man's scrutiny with a level stare. “Why do you wish to strike at the very one you work for?” 

The man folded his arms, perhaps seeing the question as a challenge. “We just want to discredit him, then maybe someone who sees men as men will take his place. And since a merchant’s only as good as his cargo and money - things that aren’t even really part of him – it’s easy for him to become nothing.” 

“So you are suggesting that it is the men of skill that matter, not those of means.” 

“Exactly.” The vigilante’s mouth quirked into a small smile, though Connor did not return it, only regarded the other man thoughtfully. He shrugged and waved a nonchalant hand in invitation. “If you’re not Johnson’s friend, I assume we’re here for the same reasons. Come on then if you want to help.” 

The vigilante walked off, and Connor hesitated only briefly before following him into a grassy area between the buildings, which had been converted into a small livestock enclosure. Though sheltered from the afternoon crowd, the space was far from encaging, and seemed unlikely to harbor an ambush. 

Connor nodded in absent greeting as the four other men hailed him from their relaxed positions about the narrow area. The one he had spoken with – the eldest of those here – perched upon the fence of a goat pen as he faced them. “Well, boys, seems we have another hero here who wants to help out.” 

The leader looked the Assassin in the eye, smirking slightly as he asked, “You said that it would have only taken one man to burn Johnson’s cargo. Could you have done it?” 

“Perhaps,” Connor said carefully, glancing around at the others and feeling his wolf spirit’s ears flick, mistrustful about where the questions were leading. 

“So you think Johnson’s mercenaries would believe us if we blamed everything on you?” 

The Assassin tensed, a hand already on his tomahawk, but the laborers did not advance on him, only flinched a little in surprise at his flared temper. The leader waved him down, saying quickly, “Just a hypothetical question, friend. What I meant was, do you think we could sneak into the main warehouse by bringing you as a prisoner?” 

Connor scowled and did not relax his stance, only asked tightly, “And how can I believe that you will not abandon me there?” 

“You’re a warrior, I can see that,” the man said calmingly. “Those blades on your arms are pretty clever. We’ll have to hold onto your other weapons, but you’ll feel safe enough if we leave you those two, yeah?” 

The Assassin did not answer right away, but he knew that the words made sense. Their goals were aligned, and it would be foolish to avoid an alliance simply because of unfounded suspicions. In response, he shrugged off his bow and quiver, tossing them to the nearest laborer and saying tersely, “You had better keep these safe.” 

The man nodded a little nervously as Connor handed over the rest of his weapons, and as the leader directed one of the others to run ahead with their report of success at capturing the miscreant. The Assassin stood to one side of the group, and listened to the man’s description of the warehouse and of their jobs when they managed to get inside - two to carry the gunpowder, two to guard the door, one to ready the spark. 

“Good, I think we’re ready. Just one last thing to make it convincing--” 

Connor reacted without thinking when the rope brushed his arm, and he seized the wrist of the one trying to bind him, his lip pulled back in a feral snarl. There was a flashed moment of tension, as none in the alley dared to breathe. 

“God, okay, okay,” the man finally said with a measure of shock, his other hand lifted in surrender as the slitted eyes bore into him. “You don’t like being touched, I get it.” 

The Assassin regarded him a moment before he calmly released his grip, only watching as the other stumbled back and shook the ache from his twisted wrist. Connor moved agreeably into the middle of the group without comment, and folded his arms behind him. He glanced pointedly at the leader, who set a cautious hand on his shoulder and signaled the others into formation around them. 

The small group filed out onto the main street and parted a path through the crowd with little effort. Connor noticed a few people looking to him curiously, but he kept his eyes on the street throughout the short walk to the pier, glancing up only to count the guards and measure the rooftops. 

Sure enough, they were allowed directly into Johnson’s warehouse, though the wolf in him struggled not to bare its teeth in warning at the jeering mercenaries. Once they passed into the firelight within the warehouse, and after the door had closed behind them, the five split off in opposite directions. 

Connor rotated the slight cramp from his shoulders and made his way into the rafters, settling comfortably at a window to keep watch. He kept one eye on the guards outside, and one on his allies as they rearranged the crates into the center of the wide space, and surrounded it with gunpowder. 

They had nearly finished when his wolf spirit looked up, hackling at a sudden confusion outside. The company of British soldiers he had seen earlier had arrived at the warehouse, questioning Johnson’s mercenaries hotly and obviously still investigating the unrest being caused in their city. One of the mercenaries pointed toward the warehouse, and the Assassin knew that their time had run out. 

He called back a quiet warning to the laborers, before releasing his wrist blade and coiling ready just above the doorway. He heard the sizzle of lit gunpowder just as he leapt, just as the soldiers kicked open the warehouse door. His blades slammed deep into shoulder and throat, and he caught himself with a roll as the momentum bore the two guards to the ground. 

Connor whirled around, catching himself just before he slid over the edge of the dock, and charged into the still-forming firing line. He tore into the necks of three before throwing himself bodily into the last soldier, seizing his musket and forcing the stock into ribs when the other was stubborn to release it. 

He ran towards the mercenary guards even as he finished loading the gun, firing the shot into one’s head and impaling another without breaking momentum. He growled out when a knife grazed his left arm, and he turned viciously sideways to drive the bayonet into the offender’s back. 

The way was cleared, and Connor called out for the laborers to follow him past the murmuring crowd. The pooling blood lapped at their boots as they ran over the bodies, and left the wooden boards of the docks stained. 

Had he not been preoccupied, had he not needed to herd his allies from the doomed warehouse, Connor would have noticed. But no, this time, the Templar managed to remain unseen, frowning thoughtfully as he observed the hooded figure. 

Thomas Hickey waited for the Assassin to leave, before hopping off the barrel he had been perched on. The explosion behind him rocked the port district into an uproar, but he took no notice. He carelessly tossed the rest of his drink into the sea and trotted off, hands in pockets, to report this interesting development to his master.


	3. Ravenous

He waved off the cajoling of the men who mistook him as their ally, and politely refused a visit to the local tavern to toast their success. Connor only retrieved his weapons and vanished into the crowd, relishing in the fact that he had managed to sever Johnson’s influence without having destroyed the man. A snide remark to Achilles seemed in order, but he knew that his return to the homestead would have to wait.

Instead, he wasted a few hours walking the back streets of Boston and climbing its sloped rooftops, dodging the thick British patrols he met at nearly every corner. He waited patiently until the investigations into the warehouse fires were abandoned, until the determined, marching soldiers dejectedly filtered off to their watch posts. However, he had not even left the city when he was interrupted once again.

"...can deliver it directly to him."

The voice was familiar, infuriatingly so, and the Assassin stopped dead in the middle of the street. His eyes flashed with his Sense as an old anger stirred in him, and he swept a glare through the crowd.

He caught sight of the Templar just as he turned a corner several steps ahead of him, and he sprinted after him without a second thought. He barely heard the cries of protest from passersby as he shouldered through them and took the front awning of a shop in two steps. He leapt from there to the rooftops, meaning to intercept the man when he turned onto the adjacent street.

Even as he ran, taking sharp detours to try to close the distance from his target, Connor could hear Achilles’ cautioning words, knew too well that he was not yet capable of besting Charles Lee in a direct fight. But the Assassins were shadows, blades in a crowd. Advantage could be gained elsewhere, if he did not possess it in combat skill.

He was ready to bury a knife into the man as soon as he was within range, but the Assassin begrudgingly held back when the roof edges ended abruptly at the city outskirts. He panted quietly as the adrenaline still burned within him, but he could do little more than settle slowly onto his haunches as Lee turned off the thoroughfare and stopped on a worn dirt road. Only here, away from the crowd, did Connor realize that the Lee had not been walking through Boston alone.

The second Templar lounged against a nearby fence as the two of them waited. Hickey folded his arms behind his head, conversationally giving a rather base comment about a passing group of women, which Lee only answered with cool, barely contained disgust. Hickey was a difficult man to be around, Connor recalled, smirking a little darkly at Lee’s discomfort.

However, he tensed again as he caught sight of another figure slipping free of the main street to approach the pair. Connor rose to his feet without thinking when he recognized the man, the wolf of him lifting its head in rapt attention.

“Gentlemen,” Haytham Kenway greeted as he drew to a halt next to his fellow Templars. “I’ve already sent William to meet with the Iroquios, though he was still upset over the attack this morning. I presume you’ve found something to put his mind at ease, Thomas?”

“Aye, saw it m’self,” Hickey sniffed, jerking his head in the general direction of the harbor. “Was sittin’ right there when it ‘appened. There weren’t that many of ‘em, but they knew their way ‘round. Blew up the crates then done went and scattered like rats.”

“Rebels?” Lee ventured, frowning.

“Nah, nothin’ like that, jus’ some dogs workin’ the docks mostly. But there was an interestin’ one – a savage. Leadin’ them looked like.”

"A little vengeance from the Kanien'keha:ka?" A chuckle, almost pitying. "A fool's move. They just handed William all the leverage he needs for the negotiations. I doubt any will object to him collecting a little recompense for his losses."

Connor took a faltered step back, realizing almost blankly how easily his supposed act of justice had been turned against him. His first actual chance to protect his people, and he had all but handed their land to the Templars on a platter.

The shock unbalanced him, and he needed to struggle to follow the conversation as the group began discussing other matters. He listened just long enough to take note of the route that Johnson’s caravan was taking, and plan one that would allow him to catch up.

But as he turned to leave, he took one last look upon those who had orchestrated the attack on his village, and hesitated. Though his father had spoken the order, the blood that his wolf spirit slavered for was Lee’s. All these Templars were to blame, but Connor could not forget the derision on that man’s face as he spared his life, a shred of generosity that only worsened the cruelty that had followed; like a bone shard thrown to starving hounds.

He glared upon the back of Lee’s head even as he knew that he needed to leave immediately, needed to intercept Johnson before his ‘negotiations’ inevitably grew out of hand. But the ache of memory held him, and Connor considered whether he would be able to shoot down Lee from here, oblivious as he was of his presence.

His hand moved to the flintlock at his belt while he toyed with the thought, but as his gaze shifted away from Lee to check for any nearby civilians, Connor started badly; a rarity for him. Haytham was staring over Lee’s shoulder directly at him, the dark eyes locking with his even with the distance.

He showed no aggression, merely tilted his head slightly in mild interest, but Connor felt the wolf in him recoil, as guarded as if the other had raised a firearm. The Assassin found himself frozen for a long moment, almost unable to breathe, before he broke the gaze and swiftly retreated away from the street.

He had already placed three rooftops between himself and the Templars when it occurred to him that he was not really sure why he was running.

The man unsettled him for reasons he could not voice. Haytham was no father of his - his commitment to the wrong side had seen to that - yet Connor knew that some part of him still wondered, still naively held to dreams. Haytham had offered him nothing but silence, given him only pain and malice; yet even now, why was he unsure what his answer would be if the man asked him for forgiveness?

The Assassin shook his head sharply as he reminded himself that he had a mistake to rectify, a failing that he desperately needed to salvage. He broodingly realized that the vigilante had spoken truth, in that a merchant stripped of his money and cargo became nothing, but that did not make him helpless. No, doing so only served to make the greedy all the more ravenous.

With both concern for his people and shame at his fault heavy in his mind, Connor only hesitated briefly before stealing a horse from the city gates. He settled low in the saddle and urged the beast northwards, barely seeing the path as he rode hard through the frontier.

Kanen’to:kon was waiting for him by the time he neared the valley, the worry practically written into his face. Connor brusquely posed a single question, trying not to see the sliver of disappointment in his brother’s eyes – ah, why did this need to have happened so soon after he had told him that he would stand as their protector, had claimed that he would fight so that none of them would need to?

The other Mohawk pointed him in the right direction, and Connor rode on without looking back.

His horse shuddered under him as he finally drew it to a halt by the lake edge, and he spared a moment to ease it, setting a hand to its arched neck and quieting it with a gentle word. The Assassin slid from the saddle as he looked out across the lake, towards Johnson’s manor above it. He strained his Sense and was just able to make out the smudges of blue marking the gathered sachem, as well as the scattered red of guards all over the area.

Though they were many, the mercenaries had stationed themselves only along the visible road, quite overlooking the many snaked paths that wove deep into stone and brush. Connor was careful to remain unseen, but he could not help but press his luck and sprint the last several steps, as he came within earshot of the negotiations. They had obviously escalated, as he had feared, and he reached the edge of the rise just as Johnson blatantly threw civility into the wind and tersely ordered his personal guard into formation.

The Assassin gritted his teeth as he realized that he was still too far, felt the wolf in him snap its frustration as the line of muskets was raised towards the tense, unmoving clan leaders. Desperate, he seized the bow from his back and loosed an arrow almost without aligning it, trusting his instinct if not his eye to guide it.

The shot struck true, though not lethally, and one of the guards cried out from the feathered shaft that seemed to suddenly blossom from the crook of his arm. Connor turned and sprinted low behind the cover of the brush, choosing a different line of approach as all the mercenaries wildly turned to look towards where he had been, some even wasting shots on the trees and scrub. Well within range now, he loosed a second arrow, this time downing a man with a clean strike through one eye.

The alarm was raised, but still none of the mercenaries were able to gather their bearings. Johnson retreated deep into their midst, quite unhelpfully trying to rally them into better formation. Connor crouched out of sight as he fired several more shots, moving sporadically and weaving around the significantly slower returned fire. He aimed high for necks and faces; ensuring that those who did not feel the arrow’s bite saw the shaft miss them narrowly, some flashing mere inches from their eyes.

The Iroquios elders wisely took this chance to abandon the supposed deliberations, and the guards could do little more than fumble to contain them, terrified as they were of the lethal deluge. Many retreated back against the comforting wall of the manor, darting glances to all sides and fearing the phantom arrows. Connor ran a finger through the feather barbs of his next nocked shot, and knew he was more than happy to oblige their expectations.

“Call off your dog!” Johnson practically screamed at the retreating sachems’ backs, his panic only serving to make him a clearer target in the confusion. The shot was difficult, but the Assassin snatched at the chance nevertheless, pushing a few steps out of his cover to aim a clear line towards the Templar’s throat.

Connor had only just begun to draw back the bowstring when he caught a flicker of movement to his left. He had barely turned to look, had barely felt his wolf spirit snarl in warning, when a heavy weight slammed into his side and drove him hard into the ground.


	4. Spilled Iron

His enemy had timed the strike well, and Connor – his hands still occupied with the longbow – had little room to react or defend himself. He took the brunt of the fall against his shoulder, biting out a growl as the force tumbled him across the ground and threw him against an outcropping of rock.

The Assassin coughed into the dirt, disoriented and feeling a scorching ache flash through his right arm. He struggled to get his feet back under him as the man who had shoved him approached on light steps, openly in no hurry. He managed to push himself into a crouch and snatched at one of his flintlocks with his good arm, but the click of a cocked pistol halted him. He stiffened, slowly looking up to see an ornate barrel leveled to his face.

Connor glared past the weapon and up into his father’s eyes, the wolf in him baring its fangs though it knew it had been backed into a corner.

“Honestly, boy, even after you were caught eavesdropping, you never considered that we would follow you?”

He did not respond, only felt his wolf snap at the snare that threatened to close around it. He surged to his feet, lashing out quickly enough to force the pistol aside and discharge its shot into the ground, but Haytham countered him with little effort, catching and twisting his arm into his back. Connor hissed as the already injured limb protested, but he fought against it nevertheless, thrashing once, violently, and nearly pulling free until a second hand caught him at the jaw and jerked him back.

“Do be careful, Master Kenway,” Johnson’s concerned voice sounded from somewhere beside them as the wolf gave a muffled snarl in frustration.

“Not to worry,” Haytham remarked, his tone only slightly tight as he held back the Assassin, who continued to twist stubbornly to escape the arm lock. “He is only a child, after all.”

Connor faltered, glancing around to see the mercenaries collecting themselves and coming hesitantly over to aid the one who had managed to single-handedly stop the assault. The desperation crested in him and, caught up in the indignation of his wolf, he snapped, quite literally, biting into the hand restraining his breath. His teeth caught into flesh by the thumb, and Haytham cried out, more in shock than anything.

The Assassin tore free of the distracted hold and spat aside the blood in his mouth, retreating into the center of the circle of enemies. Though he was exposed and sorely outnumbered, he slid into a guarded stance. His right arm still pained him, and his chest still heaved from the suffocation and threat of capture, but he dutifully hid any further weakness as the wolf in him barked out a challenge.

However, Haytham showed no signs of anger at the affront, and only examined his hand with a measure of annoyance. “You’re not exactly helping the misconception that all you natives are savages,” he admonished him, frowning.

Connor pointedly remained silent, only throwing a glance to each side in search of some gap to escape through, but the ranks of mercenaries held strong, now that they saw their advantage. He paced agitatedly in the narrow space, though he was careful not to come within range of the brandished bayonets. He at least did not need to worry about any of the men firing a shot in such close quarters, but that did little to better his situation.

He tersely ignored Haytham’s scrutiny as he moved restlessly in the circle of enemies, but he could feel the steely eyes burning into him still. Finally, after a few tense seconds as the guards struggled not to cringe from the wolf’s threats – spoken not in words, but in glares and a ready hand on his pistol – Haytham finally spoke, addressing the other Templar.

“Ah, where are my manners. William, if I might introduce you to the vandal responsible for the fires today,” he said lightly, gesturing to Connor with the air of displaying a hunting trophy. “It seems he was not quite finished with interfering in your affairs.”

Johnson scoffed, eying the Assassin distastefully. “A member of the Kanien’keha:ka, I’d think? This is ridiculous, they’ve never been ones to meddle.”

Haytham shrugged languidly, taking a few steps forward and remarking, “A member of the Kanien’keha:ka, yes, but I’d wager he’s a little more than that.”

Connor tensed as Haytham lunged at him abruptly, though he realized too late that it was merely a feint. He lashed out instinctively with one hidden blade, but the Templar was ready for him, and he easily caught the younger one by the wrist. Haytham smirked slyly as he forced the arm up, showing Johnson the silver insignia pressed into the leather bracer. “It seems we weren’t as thorough as we should have been.”

Connor snatched his arm back, glowering as he retreated a few steps. Haytham graciously granted him his space with a bemused air, and Johnson commented, “They are a veritable infection, aren’t they? Who knows how many more of them have been breeding in the backstreets.”

“They’re a tenacious lot, I’ll give them that,” the other agreed. “But this one seems... different, I suppose. As you said, the Mohawk usually keep to themselves, and only the rare souls even venture out of their valley. For one to join the ranks of such a meddlesome group almost seems a paradox.”

Haytham turned to address Connor directly, and though he stopped his pacing to face him, his chin was lifted slightly in the barest hint of defiance.

“Even for an Assassin, your actions are quite peculiar,” the Templar remarked, studying him with a genuinely intrigued expression. “Thomas followed you for hours after you burned down that warehouse, but it was as if you had completely given up looking for William. If you had simply waited, you could have struck while he was distracted trying to put out the fires.”

There was a momentary silence, before a small smirk suddenly lit Haytham’s face as the realization struck him, and Connor averted his eyes, only scowling to one side as his father said with amusement, “You weren’t even trying to kill him, were you? You honestly thought that destroying his cargo would be enough to stop him?”

It was difficult to continue holding his tongue as he was derided so openly, but the Mohawk refused to grant Haytham the slightest sign that he was getting to him. The other did not seem dissuaded by the silence though, and he continued, “Strange, I admit, but understandable.” He set a sympathetic hand to the younger one’s shoulder, oblivious to him flinching back with a quiet growl. “Though do you know what I would call one who strives to achieve peace by methods apart from taking lives? A Templar.”

The statement sparked more indignation than Connor expected, and his gaze sharpened, flashing with the predatory focus of his wolf. “I am _nothing_ like you,” he snarled before he could stop himself.

Haytham regarded him for a span, one brow quirked. He may have caught the change in Connor’s eyes, even under the shade of his hood, but his impassive expression did not betray it. “No?” He smiled, though the sincerity was unwelcome. “You believed that you were capable of making the correct decision, so you took matters into your own hands. That is why you led the laborers at the docks this morning, is it not? Why you play sentinel for your people? You believe they are not capable of taking care of themselves. The Templars seek the very same, protection through governing and order.”

“You mistake sympathy with tyranny,” Connor ground out, but the Templar only chuckled in response, “Those are just words, boy. The actions done in their name are no different.”

The seeds of doubt clawed deep, but he rebuked them, almost hating himself for the waver in his convictions. The Assassin offered no response, only looking away with a quiet, impatient scoff, but the wolf in him paced its distress, incensed against the mind games though he would never admit it. The stubbornly hidden insecurity appeared to amuse Haytham, but it was Johnson who spoke next. “What’s to be done with him, sir?”

Connor paused to glower in Johnson’s direction, still and guarded again as his enemies began referring to him as barely more than an object. His window of escape was closing rapidly, he could see.

“Well, it would be foolish to make the same mistake a second time,” Haytham admitted, gesturing for a couple of the mercenaries to come forward. “It may be safer to take him for questioning, see exactly how much is left in the carcass of the Assassin Order. Leaving even one would be a mistake, else they’ll probably spread and fester.”

The two guards approached him on cautious steps, but the wolf barely noticed, as comprehension dawned upon him. A lesson was being forced onto him with merciless finality, but it was a lesson to be learned all the same. Odd how Achilles’ endless lectures on action and responsibility were not those that took, were not those that branded the necessity of taking a life upon Connor’s mind. Odd how it was a Templar who preached the very opposite ideals that reminded him why an Assassin needed to kill.

Freedom could not be won with forgiveness, not when those that opposed it built their prisons using fear and threats and the bodies of the fallen. Though the Templars justly sought peace through order, they did not seem to realize that a land in shackles did not cry for their chains to be taken up by a kinder hand, but for the restraints to be broken; regardless of the turmoil that would follow. Let war come, they would say, let there be chaos and death. But let it come by our own hand, and none else’s.

The Assassins embraced this, and though they brought fire and left behind footprints in blood, at least the jagged world that rose around them was genuine; not merely a utopia etched into cold stone, whose inhabitants breathed but did not live.

The two Templars had turned away disinterestedly by this point, dismissing him as barely more than a misled child, an indecisive soul that posed no threat, but Connor would tell them otherwise. The guards reached for him and he was ready.

Connor fell low, almost to his knees, and swept a boot into the ankles of the nearest mercenary. The man buckled, his musket scraping forward into the dirt, and the Assassin pushed past him, forcing him completely into the ground with a deft blade into the back of the neck. He parried aside a bayonet aimed at his chest as he rushed the circle of enemies, flicking his hidden blade upwards into one’s yielding throat, then swiftly spinning the blade into his palm to slit that of the man on his other side.

He stepped upon the bent back of one trying to load his musket and jumped off against him, freeing himself from the cage of enemies. Connor landed lightly atop the rock that had so badly twisted his shoulder minutes earlier, and found a clear view of both Haytham and Johnson staring upon him with barely masked surprise.

The flintlock pistol was in his hand almost by pure reflex, and Connor turned his face aside as he fired the single shot into Johnson.  The scent of spilled iron whipped into the air, and for a brief second, he solemnly realized that it was not an eagerness to kill that marked his Order. No, it was the precision and resolve by which they struck, for the Assassins were baptized – were forged and tempered – only with the blood of tyrants.

He did not wait for the remaining men to react before he set a hand to the ground and pushed himself into a sprint. Connor paused just long enough to snatch up his abandoned bow in passing, minding his still-cramped shoulder as he slung the weapon once more across his back. He could near feel the heat of his enemies’ outrage as he fled, though he did not bother to turn. He left the mercenaries stumbling through brambles after him, and sought the safety of the forest.

It was not long before he could hear little more than his own breath, and the steps of a single pursuer. He had no doubts as to who this persistent one was, but the wolf in him was not concerned. Connor ran ahead with an ease the other could not hope to match, at least not in these woods. He knew exactly how to balance on the curve of a fallen timber, exactly where to place his footing to avoid the wells of slippery moss or the matted beddings of deer. The very forest granted him precious seconds of a lead, and the Assassin took the chance to make for higher ground.

He was vulnerable for a split second as he coiled for the jump, but he already expected the hand snatching forward in a last attempt to stop him. Haytham grabbed little more than the cloth at the back of his hood as Connor ducked to evade him, pivoting smoothly around the older man to avoid another attempt, and leaping instead for an opposite trunk.

The trees accepted him into their fold with little trouble, and Connor glanced back only after placing a considerable distance between himself and his pursuer. His breath rasped distractingly in his throat as he stared down upon his father from the safety of height and branches, and found him to have finally halted, perhaps knowing that the other had fled out of his reach.

Yet it was not anger or annoyance that shadowed Haytham’s countenance, merely a mild shock, as if he were seeing Connor for the first time. There seemed to be recognition in his eyes, but Connor scoffed to himself, knowing – almost with regret? – that such was impossible.

In the silence, Connor drew his hood back over his face and levelly returned his father’s stare. He frowned, finding he could not read the deep furrow upon Haytham’s brow, could not decide whether the masked emotions boded good or ill. The senses of his wolf could tell him nothing, not when this enemy seemed to possess the same spirit, the same instinct; a predator’s eyes.

Neither would gain their answers today, particularly since a direct fight at this point would not end well for either of them, not when the mix of injury and skill and terrain tilted the odds so sporadically in either direction. No, there would be time for battles yet, and both well knew that it would not be long until the blood spilled today was answered in kind.


	5. Crown and Colonies

It was not the first time he limped back to the homestead with bloodied robes and an empty quiver, but never before had the turmoil still remained evident upon his face, the weight of the encounter still hard in his eyes. Achilles only looked upon the rather haggard figure standing tense at his doorstep, and somberly set a hand on his arm, leading him into the manor for much needed rest and treatment.

Connor admitted his failings to the old man with a rather tight voice, telling him of his father and how he had so quickly uncovered his identity as an Assassin. Achilles pondered this for several moments, and finally concluded that Connor would need to lie low, at least for a while. He instructed him to stay on the homestead for the next few months, forbidding him from even going to visit his village.

The Assassin frowned, but the guilt held him, and he reluctantly agreed.

The next weeks were lost in a flurry of bridled agitation, and though his shoulder did not take long to heal, the irritation at the confinement burned him for much longer. Connor roved the grounds with a restless fervor, pacing at the end of his short leash. Myriam accompanied him sometimes, but more often, the Assassin ran alone in an attempt to leave his thoughts behind. At times, he would climb to the ridge and stare avidly to the west, ever fearing the sight of writhing black clouds, though at least it seemed that the Templars were not so desperate as to turn their temper on his village.

However, the grounds of the homestead were still intolerably choked, so much smaller than the sprawling mountains and woods he was used to. He threw himself into training and hunting in an attempt to keep occupied, bringing back meat for Achilles’ table or lashing out with blade and bow against the sturdier trees near the manor, but despite his efforts, the incarceration set his wolf on edge. Connor found himself snapping at the other homestead residents, usually unprovoked, though fortunately none held it against him. They merely glanced to each other in silence, almost pitying him.

Outside the homestead, life continued, as it tended to, and the Assassin could only observe from a distance, the wind whipping at his coat and sash as he clung to a sturdy branch and watched the soldiers march past. War roiled hot just out of his reach, but not even the bloodshed at the nearby Lexington and Concord allowed Connor to convince Achilles to permit him to leave, to help, if only to put his blade to good use.

The barbed reminder that venturing out too soon would bring the Templars to their doorstep was enough to stay him, though the Assassin detested it all the same. He did not make a habit of disobeying his mentor’s commands, yet each passing day made it ever more difficult.

As such, the courier arriving at the homestead was more than welcome, a much needed change from routine. The summons he bore was from Samuel Adams – a friend of Achilles’ who Connor remembered with pleasant recognition – who had heard of the aid the Mohawk had offered the workers of Boston. The ones he had helped had evidently possessed ties to the Sons of Liberty, and it seemed they needed him once again.

On a different occasion, Connor would have politely declined, would have chosen to avoid such blatant involvement in the steadily brewing storm between the crown and colonies. He had his own wars to fight, his own beasts to wrestle with, but the wolf in him leapt for any chance to stretch its legs. It only took a moment to point out to Achilles that John Pitcairn was mentioned by name, and to remind him that he had a debt to repay.

The Assassin slipped from the homestead in the muted light and cold of the early morning. Cautious still of Templar traps or tails, he was careful to remain off the path, plotting needlessly winding routes in an attempt to keep potential enemies from tracking him down to his home.

His wolf’s ears were lifted alert as he traveled, and it did not take him long to notice the scattered groups of men camped over the frontier. They did not seem the usual pioneers who took to the wild in search of self-reliance, or who relished in taking orders from none. No, these men seemed more suited to skulking in back alleys with the rats, unnoticed and grimy, but freer than any else within the city walls. Hickey’s associates, he would guess, most likely ordered out of their usual haunts in search of the Assassin.

But they would not find him, he vowed, would not see even a trace of him, as if he did not exist. Connor stayed his blade with difficulty whenever he chanced across a group, sating himself by standing far overhead, and watching them rub their hands over their fires and grumble of pointless assignments.

Each time, he turned his back on the Templar agents and continued on to Philadelphia. He threaded his way through an excited mass of people and had just begun to wonder what the occasion was, when Sam called to him through the crowd.

“Ah, Connor, I hoped you would come,” he said warmly, setting a hand on his back to lead him through the crowd. “There’s someone here I wanted you to meet.” The Assassin smiled slightly as he nodded in greeting, and followed the other into a nearby building, but he had barely gone a few steps inside when he halted.

Connor felt his wolf fold its ears, sniffing uneasily at the finely decorated room filled with chattering nobles, and feeling blatantly out of place. “I... I am not sure this is somewhere I should--"

“Nonsense,” Sam said jovially, clapping a hand onto his shoulder and all but dragging him into the room. “Wars aren’t only fought on the battlefield, my boy. It might do you good to see its other faces.” Connor glanced about a little warily as they wove through the crowd, but none paid him any attention. Sam, quite oblivious to his discomfort, offered him a seat at the edge of the room, which the Assassin only took after much hesitation.

He was never one for the politics behind these battles, but Connor tilted his head in some curiosity when a man was granted the stand, in order to take up the mantle of commander in chief. George Washington spoke sincerely and promised much, but the Assassin could only wryly think that such speeches could not come to much if not backed by action. Still, the wolf in him could sense the candor behind the words, an honest belief that was not necessarily realistic.

“I can think of no man more suited for the position,” Sam remarked quietly as Washington bowed slightly and rejoined the audience, speaking almost in answer to the Assassin’s thoughts. A scoff sounded from somewhere to their right at the statement, and the wolf raised its head sharply, hackles lifted. Connor tensed, turning just in time to see Lee sweep past him between the rows of tables, making for the doorway with the rest of the crowd.

Sam was only able to blink as Connor pushed suddenly to his feet and joined the throng in two swift steps. He quite forgot himself, abandoning reason and caution to the wind as he stalked forward, the wolf in him so starved of blood. Though he was silent and concealed his blade as he was taught, those he brushed past flinched away from him, perhaps feeling the murderous aura that coiled about him in a crimson-stained shroud. He had nearly reached Lee when someone spoke up from beside him.

“That wouldn’t be wise, child.”

Connor stopped short when a man caught his arm as he passed, and he bristled, turning with a small snarl to warn him off. However, he paused when he found Washington looking him in the eye quite solemnly, more in admonishment than in threat. “This is a venue for democracy, not bloodshed. I don’t know what you have against Charles, but I will not condone any violence here.”

The Assassin hesitated, glancing between the elder man and the doorway with a clouded frown. Finally, after a tense moment of indecision, he yielded to the request, only feeling his wolf growl in slight disappointment as Lee left the room without seeing him. Connor took a step back and eased his blade arm just as Sam caught up to them, not seeming to have noticed the Assassin’s momentary temper.

The patriot smiled to Washington and introduced them, naming Connor as a man of the people, though the Mohawk was quick to brush off the statement, glancing to one side with some discomfort. Washington gave him a rather appraising look, offering his approval in standing for those who could not, and appearing not to hold Connor’s earlier hostility against him.

The commander inclined his head slightly to them as he excused himself and left the room, easily parting the crowd as he did. Connor looked after Washington with a furrowed brow, still a little perturbed from having lost his chance to face Lee; but he could admit that there was something to this man, a silent, easy strength that promised reliability just as much as the words he spoke.

With a moment to themselves, Sam readily gave Connor the information on Pitcairn he had promised, as well as a letter that would help him join the Continental ranks at Bunker Hill. Though the Assassin was grateful and nodded attentively to the other’s explanations of the planned attack, he did not admit that he had little intention on aiding one side or the other, at least not directly.

The nobility in freedom was clear to him, and he would lend aid when he could, but he too knew the importance of leaving the patriots to fight their own battles. The coddled young that bleated and huddled at their dam’s side were always the first to fall when winter came, were always the ones to fatten the wolves.

Connor dipped a bow as he thanked Sam and returned to the streets. He largely tuned out the chatter of the townsmen as they offered both hope and discontent at Washington’s appointment, spoke in truths and laughingly constructed slanders.

He made to leave the city, but he had barely passed two streets when he was interrupted by the whisper of a hostile presence, which his Sense marked as a thread of crimson in the thick crowd, a trickle of blood in darkened earth. The enemy was a distance from him, but Connor scowled, already expecting the coarse, taunting words.

“Guess the boss was right about you, lad. You really have it in for Lee there, don’t you?” The Assassin turned to glower in Hickey’s direction but said nothing, only silently measured the distance between them and touched the pistol at his belt.

The Templar smirked at him from through the shifting crowd, meeting the unspoken challenge. He wove tauntingly closer, but each time Connor tensed to strike, Hickey ducked behind one of the passing citizens, each of whom were thoroughly blind to the threatened battle in their midst. The wolf in him snarled its irritation, but he checked himself brusquely, refusing to be taunted into injuring a civilian.

Instead, Connor paced as well, flowing with the mass of bodies and narrowing his eyes upon the Templar’s face, which dipped in and out of his sight as if in a sea.

“I saw you in there, cozyin’ up with the Congress,” Hickey accused him, his lip pulled back in a sneer. “Wot, you lookin’ to be Georgie’s pet then? ‘E might like that, havin’ a savage in 'is collection.”

“I am no one’s property, Templar,” Connor bit out, advancing in the other’s direction and relishing in him taking a sharp step back in response. “Now if you are too afraid to fight me, do not stand in my way.”

A bark of a laugh, though it was somewhat wavered. “Don’t flatter yourself, boy-o, I’m not here for you. Might be a shock to that ego of yours, but you ain’t exactly the most important thing in the world.” Hickey tipped his tricorne to him mockingly and stole off back into the crowd. Connor let him go, albeit reluctantly, knowing that more pressing matters called to him in Boston.

He made to leave with a purposeful stride, but the prickled sense of being watched hounded him clear through the city. His wolf flattened its ears at the unseen enemy, and though he turned subtly to look over his shoulder several times, he could not catch a flicker of a threat from the rooftops or nearby side streets.

Perhaps it was merely paranoia that gripped him, but Connor remained on his guard until he reached the comforting shade of the forest paths.


	6. Smoke of Flint

The Continental soldiers were retreating, dragging their rifles and injured friends through the mud even as cannon fire snapped and roared at their heels. Connor stepped past them quite in the opposite direction, shouldering through the flow of bodies and keeping his eyes only on Pitcairn, who he could just see behind the knotted lines of crimson. The tangle of battle, he knew, would hide him as well as any shadow.

A few of the officers finally noticed the stranger winding his way past the panicked soldiers, but the Assassin barely spared them a glance. Someone snatched at the collar of his coat and demanded a halt, but Connor only flicked an arm up to free himself without missing a step.

He vaulted over the meager dirt barrier and felt the uproar of noise hit him like a wall. He frowned minutely in unease at the deafening tumult of shouted orders and rifle shots, of the wailing of the wounded. Every volley from the British army only added to the clamor, as each sparked an ominous flash of thunder and dropped a half-dozen more into the earth.

Connor breathed in the smoke of flint and broke into a run, narrowly evading cannonballs that threw mud and bodies both into the air. His boots caught in the mire as he slid behind cover at every volley, struggling for balance on the uneven terrain choked with the fallen.

Mere feet from the firing lines, the Assassin pressed his back into the jagged wood of a fallen tree, fighting a moment to ease his nerves, as his wolf spirit fed on the tension and fear laced heavily into the air. Battles, he had fought, and death was nothing new to him; but never had he found himself this deep in open warfare, where panic bled into entire detachments like an illness, and cowed even the strongest when those at their shoulders fled for their lives.

The hesitation was only momentary, but Connor rebuked it harshly, lifting his head to glare resolutely into the sky. He silently counted the seconds after the British officers yelled a command to fire, and he leapt into motion in time with the loosed shots. He cleared the edge of his cover in the same moment the musket balls buried harmlessly into wood, and was upon the front lines of soldiers before they even realized he was there.

Countless bayonets bristled around him as fangs, but the Assassin only twisted sharply to evade them, clearing a path with tomahawk or hidden blade when a gap did not exist. He pushed through the thicket of enemies, ever in motion, a narrowed glare flicking between his targets as he lashed into back and throat and hamstring, leaving as much carnage as any cannon shot.

The British lines did not break; they did not cry out or run even as the wolf tore them from within, but blade cut into what fear did not. They fell all the same, body failing regardless of spirit.

Connor looked up in time to see Pitcairn recoil, eyes wide and hands tight upon the reins of his horse as he stared upon the phantom coming for him. He had the look of a startled deer, and the Mohawk reacted instinctively, as for any prey about to slip away from him.

He found a foothold on a nearby cannon, gaining enough ground over the cloying mass of enemies to fire a single arrow after his target. Pitcairn cried out and fell from the saddle, but vanished from his sight.

Connor landed unsteadily, tensing as he faced a fresh contingent, though a rallying cry halted him. He and the other soldiers turned just as the bolstered Continental forces slammed upon the British, flooding into the break in the crimson ranks that Connor had left. They rushed forward with a determination that was almost madness; bearing aloft the meager hope that had been inadvertently given.

The Assassin blinked a moment, just as startled as the British soldiers, though he was quicker to recover. He used the distraction to slip free of the press of bodies, and enter the sparsely populated main camp. The wolf in him set its nose to the ground, picking up on the scattered gold of his target’s blood almost immediately, and seeing that it led a distance from the battle, and toward the outer edges of the encampment.

He followed the trail without thinking, unwilling to let the Templar escape. He turned a corner around a large tent, and Pitcairn looked sharply over his shoulder to meet the Assassin’s gaze. The adrenaline of the battle roiled fresh in him, and Connor lunged toward his fleeing target, noticing the presence at his flank too late.

He barely had a chance to snap out a curse as a solid haft swept his legs from under him, and he hit the ground hard on his side. He pushed himself to his elbows in time to see a brute of a man swinging a heavy axe towards him, and he rolled swiftly to dodge it. He found two more suddenly around him, unnervingly close with weapons raised, and Connor dug his fingers into the dirt to regain his feet and evade the hungering blades, pushing himself to a run as soon as he had salvaged his balance.

He flicked into the cover of a nearby copse of trees, catching the edge of one trunk as he passed and using his own momentum to swing to a low branch. He had gained a significant height before his pursuers reached him, and he quickly wound deeper into the dense leaves, struggling to ease his breath past gritted teeth.

“Assassin!”

Pitcairn was calling for his attention, but Connor made no sign that he had heard. He slowed to a halt on a narrow branch, peering around the edge of the trunk at his target standing a distance from him. The three heavily set men with broad axes had drawn up beside Pitcairn, all staring into the trees quite in the wrong direction.

The Templar shook his head after a stretched moment of silence, and motioned the soldiers forward with a quiet order. Connor tilted his head, frowning and leaning out slightly to watch one man take something from a satchel at his side. The tiny spark and smoke from the small device was enough of a warning, and he flinched back, the wolf in him lashing out a growl. He was already running before he had even fully comprehended the danger.

The soldier threw the explosive upwards, and the Assassin slid into the lee of a wide trunk just before the blast, ducking low and shielding his face with his arm as fire and shrapnel tore apart the branches mere feet from him. He gasped soundlessly, shaking the ringing from his ears as he fled to the opposite side of the grove. Several more grenades exploded behind him, and Connor stumbled, trying not to cough on the ash and flaring embers.

After one too many blackened branches creaked under his weight, and burned a brand into his palm when he reached out to steady himself, Connor snarled and knew he needed to abandon the trees. He coiled still for the next explosion, before leaping directly through the resulting plume of smoke to land heavily on one of the grenadiers. His hidden blade bit deep, and the Assassin freed himself from the body before it hit the earth.

He turned to face his enemies, his stance steady though his breath was irregular, the smoke feeling unnatural and heavy deep in his lungs. However, his return to the ground seemed to be enough for the Templar, and the wolf frowned when Pitcairn abruptly lifted a hand, stopping the advance of the two intent on avenging their ally. The Templar stepped forward past his bodyguards, and Connor watched his movements with narrowed eyes.

“Master Kenway said you would be coming for me next,” Pitcairn said evenly. His brow was furrowed, and one hand was pressed to the broken arrow shaft in his arm, but his expression was commendably calm all the same.

“Yet you did not flee,” Connor remarked after a pause, the statement almost a question.

“I am a soldier, Assassin. I trust my commander and will do as I am told,” he replied tightly. He eyed the younger one with something akin to disapproval, but there was surprisingly little resentment. “Though I admit I cannot see why the master thinks you to be of some use to us.”

“He...?” Connor caught himself, quick to stifle his half-formed question and hide his confusion behind a scowl. He stalked to one side, glaring upon Pitcairn as he asked instead, “What do you mean?”

“A message,” Pitcairn said plainly, unmoving, though the Assassin caught the minute twitch of his hand upon his pistol, perhaps an involuntary show of nerves. “Your Order is no less of a nuisance, but there are more dire matters at hand. Regardless of your allegiance, you are still in a position to influence the Continentals. You must tell Washington to withdraw his forces before this petty insurrection grows out of hand.”

Connor held his voice level, but could not keep the disgust from curling his lip. “These are men fighting for their freedom, I do not see how that is petty.”

The Templar gave an exasperated breath, gesturing vehemently at the still-raging battle behind them. “You cannot possibly be blind to the needless chaos this is bringing. If one side would just lay down their arms, the war would be over.”

“Yes, because that side would be dead,” the Assassin bit out. “One side submitting to the other would not be a truce, it would be a massacre. A truce cannot exist if it is not mutual.”

Pitcairn sighed, shaking his head. “If a mutual truce could be found, Assassin, there would not be a war in the first place.”

Connor looked away with some impatience, but tensed again in an instant when the other raised his firearm. Pitcairn eyed him almost solemnly, speaking out, “Do not mistake this as a pardon. Though Master Kenway thinks your role to be necessary, I’m sure this war can be stopped even with you dead. Now turn around and leave, choose to be a messenger instead of a warrior, and I will let you live.”

“You know as well as I that that is not about to happen,” the Assassin said rigidly. “Regardless, since you speak sincerely... I will carry your words to the commander. If only since they are your last.”

He released a single hidden blade, and Pitcairn’s bodyguards advanced threateningly in response, forming a veritable wall of meat before their charge. Connor only regarded them with his wolf’s eyes, clearly seeing the danger that none of them comprehended.

He rushed forward, drawing back his left arm with wrist blade extended, and emphasizing the movement to divert his enemies’ attention from the flintlock ready in his opposite hand. One of the grenadiers brandished an explosive, but he was not even able to spark the wick to life before Connor intercepted him.

The Assassin fired, striking the soldier’s hand in the close range and forcing him to drop the grenade. He slid to a halt and changed direction, snatching at his second pistol with his left and firing upon the sphere of gunpowder just as it hit the ground. Connor glanced back as he fled, admittedly feeling some remorse as he met Pitcairn’s somber gaze.

The compounded explosion went off like a cannon, and even long after the smoke had cleared and the fires had guttered, none caught by the blast regained their feet.


	7. Truth

The landscape after the battle seemed a different world. Connor threaded past the wounds in the earth that the cannons had left, silent as he glanced to the soldiers collecting their dead. Small fires had blackened much of the younger brush around them, and the fallen timbers and stones were scarred with musket shots.

The Assassin paced slowly, frowning and distractedly touching a hand to his chest. His breath felt short, almost choked, weighted as it was by smoke from the earlier explosions. He suppressed his cough, ducking the curious stares and making a point of evading those who still had caution in their eyes, whose bruised and dirtied faces yet gave testament to the burden of battle.

It was simple to track the retreat of the Continental Army, and he followed the caravans of the wearied back to their camp. The open space was evidently an abandoned farmland, with cannons resting between furrows of once plowed earth, and with muskets and crates stacked among the shells of barns and storehouses.

The very air felt heavy with the soldiers’ unrest, many tersely busy upon discovering that there was as much to be done now, as there had been when the muskets and cannons were being fired. Connor slid through the crowd unnoticed, moving past open graves and makeshift hospices; both the nursed wounded and the honored dead side by side, equally little more than bodies upon the ground.

He finally found Washington at the center of the encampment, evidently going over the result of the day’s battle with one of his officers. Connor stepped towards the commander, but had only just begun to call for his attention when a pair of soldiers bodily intercepted him.

Their coats were uncharacteristically pristine - evidence that they had not participated in the fight - and they spoke in jeering tones, perhaps frustrated to have missed their chance. The Assassin weathered the rather degrading terms they called him, his wolf sweeping its tail in some impatience. It was foolish of the spared to envy those who had fought, they perhaps forgetting how easily the blood spilled could have been theirs.

“Connor? Ah, I thought that was you.”

The amiable voice drew the soldiers’ attention away, and the Mohawk glanced up to see Washington beckoning to him, having excused himself from the other Continental officer. There was a noticeable pause, but the two soldiers let him through rather bitterly.

Connor came to stand beside the elder one, who was looking out thoughtfully to the camp stretched before them, apparently taking in the aftermath with as much scrutiny as he had the battle itself. “The men have been speaking of you,” Washington commented with a small smile, folding his arms. “Even now I’m sure they’re weaving stories of a white wolf feasting upon the British troops, and showing them that, in some instances, numbers can count for nothing.”

The Assassin glanced to the commander with a furrowed brow, before rather unsurely returning his gaze forward. “That was not my intention,” he admitted somewhat stiffly, though his remark was met with a gentle chuckle.

“Maybe not, but you gave them courage all the same. This war is going to be far from easy, and sometimes a few wild tales are necessary to bear the men through the harder times. For that, I thank you.” Washington met his eye lightly, surprisingly at ease and quite blatantly unlike the soldiers around them, who continued to regard Connor as they would a feral dog.

The Assassin nodded, accepting the praise quietly. In the silence that followed, Connor recalled Pitcairn’s entreaty to him, and decided to pose it as if it had just occurred to him. “The enemy does not take this uprising seriously,” he stated, blunt though he did not speak it in a challenge. “Some believe that it may be better for the Continentals to abandon the fight altogether, that peace might be gained more quickly.”

Washington eyed him with a raised brow. “You said it yourself, child, only some believe that. If even one of my soldiers thinks otherwise, chooses to fight for something they believe to be better than theoretical peace, it is my responsibility to lead them.”

Connor did not respond, though he did allow the shadow of a smile. It was heartening, he supposed, to know of others who strove for freedom, to know that this army – labeled as they were as rabble – stood a chance yet.

The wolf in him had settled, unaffected by the tangle of hectic movement in the camp, but a flicker in the crowd mere feet away lifted its ears, and started a growl in its throat. Connor straightened, a hand already on a weapon at his belt as he met the eyes of the Templar he could not seem to escape from.

Hickey seemed a little startled to see him, and Connor glanced to him in a silent threat, a small snarl at his lips. After a terse moment, the other scowled and slunk away, disappearing behind a line of workers feeding the horses. He followed his movement with his Sense, and only eased his stance when he had gone out of range. The Templar was appearing around Washington far too often for his liking.

“Commander,” he spoke up quietly, meeting the elder one’s questioning look and nodding in Hickey’s direction. “That man there. Have you seen him before?”

“He’s one of the volunteers, I believe,” Washington responded, squinting after the retreating form. “Is he important?”

“Perhaps not,” Connor said after a pause, not wishing to needlessly worry the other. “Though... it may be best to be cautious around him.” He frowned as he realized the purposefulness in Hickey’s step, remembered how often the Templar played the spy for his Order, and felt his wolf shift in unease. He had already taken a few steps after Hickey before he remembered to glance back a little distractedly, offering a deep nod as he made to leave. “If you would excuse me, sir.”

He hurried to catch up to the Templar in the crowd, with every intention to keep him from returning, and practically scenting the malice lingering in Hickey’s steps. His presence here could bode nothing but harm, and Connor refused to allow him near the one depended upon by so many.

Hickey did not seem to notice that he was being followed as he sauntered past the other men, tilting his hat to some of them and giving a raucous laugh to a few of their comments in passing. They seemed to know him well, and that only made the Assassin all the more guarded, all the more apprehensive for a plan that appeared long in the making.

There were barely any soldiers near the weapon stores lining one end of the encampment – it was the people who needed tending to now, more than any of the cannons or muskets or standards – and the Templar made his way into one of the storehouses without being accosted.

Connor paused just outside as he examined the building, noting the weathered planks and beams that rose up from a base of old stone. The structure was isolated and solid enough to promise the privacy of a small gathering, or perhaps of a conversation far from curious ears.

Every fiber of him was tensed ready as he entered the enclosed area, his tread low and guarded, though not even his wolf’s eyes lit on any danger within. Connor paused in some confusion as he realized that he had completely lost sight of Hickey, but was barely able to glance to either side when the rush of wind alerted him. He looked up sharply, and though he recoiled a step, the other figure caught him all the same, landing upon him and forcing him into the ground.

His vision flared as his head knocked back against the aged planks, and he reeled a moment, only distantly comprehending the hand pressing into his chest to keep him down. The Assassin shook the cloud from his thoughts, dragging in a breath past bared teeth as he met Haytham’s impassive gaze.

The wolf in him growled its indignity, and Connor snatched onto the arm pinning him, rolling to one side and yanking fiercely upon the limb. The Templar gave a sharp, startled breath as the younger one drove a knee upwards into him, and managed to drag him to the ground.

Connor kicked out to distance himself and stumbled to his feet, but had barely done so when Haytham caught him again almost effortlessly, a hand fixing upon the shoulder of his coat as he forced him back towards a stack of crates. He snarled and struggled to push away the arm holding him; though the other seemed unruffled, and only calmly lifted his opposite hand to the side of the Assassin’s face. Abruptly, he felt a sliver of icy metal pressing under his chin, and he stiffened, realizing that he recognized the narrow bite of a hidden blade.

“No more words, I think,” Haytham remarked, smiling ever slightly, though there was a dangerous flash in his eye that chilled Connor more than a glare. “It seems that every time we try to speak with you, my brothers end up dead.”

The Assassin did not move, feeling his breath catch in his throat, and he struggled to keep the flicker of distress from his face, even as he knew that he was staring upon death. He set his jaw and did not release his grip on Haytham’s forearm, all but daring the other to either take his life now, or he would be the one to strike him next. His wolf’s eyes flashed, fire-lit and defiant.

The tension stretched for a seeming age, until the Templar finally gave a quiet scoff, the amusement visible upon his face. The pressure on Connor’s throat lifted as abruptly as it had come, and he frowned as Haytham backed off and allowed him to straighten.

Connor drew away slowly, pressing a hand to the small cut the blade had left, and regarding his father with narrowed eyes. The wolf in him gave a low growl, keen again to strike, though he knew that the space was too choked, unfamiliar. Perhaps stillness would be best here.

“Any of the others would have killed you,” Haytham remarked in mild interest, pacing calmly with the air of one commenting on the weather. “And I suppose I do not blame them, you really have been trying our patience.”

The Assassin offered no reply, but the other did not seem to be waiting for one. He only continued, his tone level now, though Connor still sensed the shadow of unspoken threat. Haytham ever seemed to possess the easy bearing of one who dispassionately knew his advantage; a predator coiled to strike, though he did not choose to show it.

“I had thought that, naïve as your methods were, you at least were a little different from your... predecessors, shall we say.” Haytham cocked his head at him, almost seeming disappointed, though Connor could not think why. “We did offer you a chance to redeem yourself – an act that would have even preserved those ideals you cherish so deeply – but no, instead you decided to blindly take another life and encourage a bloody war. Sometimes I wonder if you Assassins lose sight of even your own misguided goals through the blood thirst.“

Connor scowled and started to speak a rather scathing remark, but the Templar lifted a hand, a warning clear in his eye. “I think I already told you to be silent.”

The Assassin obeyed begrudgingly, and Haytham smiled in some satisfaction as he continued, “Then I will make it simple for you. Your ties with Washington offer the opportunity to quell this rebellion while it is still in its infancy, but should he continue with this escapade into the next few weeks, both of you will cease to be useful. Am I understood?”

Connor only glowered at the rather patronizing query and did not answer it.

“Excellent,” Haytham said brightly, quite disregarding the stony silence he received and turning for the door. “I don’t expect that we shall meet again. If you’re clever, you’ll do as you are told, then return to your village to live out the rest of your life quietly.”

In hindsight, Connor realized that it might have been wiser to say nothing.

“You cannot just lure me in, say what you wish, then leave,” the Mohawk snapped into the frigid silence, unmoving but tense as he glared upon his father’s back. “Do not think me one of the hounds running obediently at your heels. I am telling you outright that I will not follow your orders." He met the irate glance that Haytham threw over his shoulder, and challenged, “Yet I can see that you will not kill me, even now. There must be more of a reason than my _usefulness_.”

“Even if there was, what makes you think I would tell it to you?”

Though the evenly spoken words were harsh, Haytham did not depart, evidently pondering the statement despite his better judgment. Finally, he sighed, turning to face the younger one again and folding his arms expectantly behind his back. “Fine, I suppose there is no reason we cannot speak civilly. One question, then we can part on equal terms, yes? Ask, then.”

“Why?” The word was simple, but Connor could see the weight it held through the slight furrow upon Haytham’s face, usually so carefully masked. A drawn breath, then the Templar answered him coolly, his smile that of an old soldier who hid his wounds.

“A memory.” Haytham met his eyes lightly, and for a split moment, the younger one knew that it was not Connor he saw standing before him. “That first time we met, I could see that you and she were the same - almost able to fly through the trees, and more than capable of leaving me in the dust. Call it sentiment or curiosity perhaps, but it is nothing more than that.”

The Templar fell silent here, and though he did not speak it directly, the Mohawk was sure that he knew who he was – if not with certainty, then at least with the conviction to delude himself into thinking it truth.

The Assassin looked away with some disquiet, the wolf in him lowering its head to the unfamiliar winds. Haytham’s next statement however – spoken in such remorse – startled him even further, and Connor failed to recover his tongue before his father had gone.

“And perhaps it is not entirely your fault that you fell to the lies of the Assassins.”


	8. False Innocence

The memory of his exchange with Haytham persisted with him throughout the journey home, and Connor dully realized that decisions had come much more easily when the Templar had simply been that, the enemy; not someone who seemed to pity him, and continually set lures with his words. The man was obstinate, still seeming to think that he was capable of enticing Connor to the other side.

When he arrived on the homestead, the Assassin spoke to no one, avoiding the main road and stepping instead across a deer trail and a line of stones spanning the river. He slipped into the building and entered the hidden basement, taking a candle with him into the dry darkness.

There, he sat before the portraits of his targets for a long time, leaning forward with arms folded upon the back of his chair, tense as if the Templars were actually in the room with him. The figures painted in heavy oils offered him no answers, but Connor stared hard upon them all the same.

This was the path his mentor had laid before him, a line of faces and arrows drawn in chalk, which the Mohawk had obediently been retracing with blood. Throughout the months of his training, he had looked upon the wall and seen the purpose in the deaths to come, but even as he neared the midpoint, he felt no satisfaction, felt no less concerned for his people since he had begun.

The lives he had taken seemed to have no more impact than the chalk crosses drawn upon these paintings in an unlit room.

Achilles found him sitting as such some time later, and came to stand next to him, leaning upon his walking stick and looking upon the portraits with detached attention.

“I had hoped to see more progress than this,” Connor mused quietly, setting his chin upon his arms and finally relaxing the position he had held for more than an hour.

“You have been where you were needed,” Achilles replied simply. “I'm sure that the aid you offered - in whatever form it came - will be remembered. And considering all your encounters with the Templars, the fact that you are still alive is a milestone in itself.”

The young Assassin frowned, glancing to the other with some skepticism. “Is that praise?”

“Perhaps,” Achilles chuckled, waving off the questioning gaze. “Either that or disbelief. Make no mistake, child, I still think you’re overreaching yourself. But I suppose success in a fool’s errand is success all the same.”

Connor scowled after Achilles as he left, though he guessed that the words were the closest to approval that the old man was willing to give. He was no more assured that his efforts would ever come to anything, but the Mohawk at least accepted the fact that he would need to finish what he had started.

In the months that followed, Connor was a little startled at how often couriers came for him, bearing letters from Sam claiming that the commander was asking for him by name. He did not answer the summons often, but soon realized that the opportunity to observe the Continentals was invaluable. As he shadowed the supply caravans lumbering through the frontier, slow and tempting as driven cattle, he realized that the tongues of travelers were much more eager than their on-watch counterparts, bored as they were of the long roads and silent forests.

The soldiers themselves seldom knew of the assistance he gave, barely even noticing the Assassin’s presence. They usually only laughed in disbelief at their good fortune every time they reached their destination without difficulty, blind to the phantom flickering over them through the branches and clearing their path of enemies they did not see.

Connor never spoke with any of the Continentals – save Washington, on the rare instances he accompanied the convoys – and chose instead to listen. The Mohawk would crouch upon low branches to sift through the murmured conversations, picking up rumors of volunteers using the war as a means of fattening their own purses, of swindling coin and favors in the name of the revolution.

Hickey was never mentioned by name, but Connor had no doubts of his involvement.

It took several weeks of setting his ear to the wind, and of piecing together the whispers of usury and counterfeit and the tangled names of merchants, before the Assassin was finally led to New York. Even then, the city hid its secrets, and Connor was loath to find that his target eluded him still.

It was a few days more before he happened upon the argument between a storekeeper and one of his patrons, and for once, he was almost pleased to hear the calls for the city guards. The Mohawk watched attentively from the crowd as the merchant threw a sheaf of money into his customer’s face, deriding him for fraud and calling heatedly for his arrest.

The accused man ducked his head and hurriedly pushed his way out of the throng, muttering a few feeble words in his defense. Connor followed him closely, a little impressed at the man’s skill in evading the local soldiers as he scurried for the safety of the backstreets. Quite carelessly, however, the counterfeiter then headed straight for his base.

Connor set a shoulder to the doorway that the man had disappeared into, the wolf in him sniffing at the edges of the dimly lit printing shop, its ears flicking forward as it finally picked up the long awaited traces of the Templar. He shut his eyes briefly to count the muffled voices and steps within, before letting out a decisive breath and throwing his weight into the closed door just as one passed by.

The unfortunate mercenary was thrown clear as the solid wood caught him in the face, and he tumbled back across the table at the center of the room, neatly sweeping everything with him onto the ground.

Hickey jerked back a step as the falling body clattered past and missed him narrowly, and there was a terse moment of silence as all in the room turned their attention to the Assassin framed in the entrance, the upset papers drifting serenely to the floor about them.

“Y’know, boy, I’m gettin' real tired of you followin’ me.”

Connor did not answer the cross statement, but his slitted glare and the sudden tension in his stance as he coiled for a lunge was enough to spook the Templar, the scowl vanishing from his face in an instant. Hickey abandoned any pretense of bravado as he turned and fled out the front door in a scattering of paper, barely glancing back at the Mohawk cutting his way through the other mercenaries after him.

Though Connor sprinted close at Hickey’s heels, the other was slippery and well used to losing pursuers in the thickly populated streets. He unabashedly threw stalls and civilians into the Assassin’s path, and ducked into slivered gaps between the buildings that Connor would not have noticed had he passed them on his own. The wolf in him snapped its frustration, its prey only just out of reach.

More than once, the chase led them through open doorways; the two upsetting dinnerware and startled residents as they tore through a household like a storm, only to be gone again just as quickly. Shouted reprimands chorused behind them, but neither took any notice.

Finally, one such pass granted the Assassin a split moment of an advantage, as Hickey exited the building and turned an immediate right, making the mistake of passing the window. Connor gathered for the leap, and took the detour through the glass storefront without hesitation.

The sharp splintering of glass hardly registered to him as Connor slammed into the Templar shoulder first, and they both hit the street in a tangle of cloth and jagged shards.

Hickey swore heatedly, but the Mohawk only latched onto the collar of the other’s coat and dragged him upright, a hidden blade at his throat. “Enough,” he snapped as the rat twisted to escape from him. “I am not about to let you or yours endanger Washington. He is the only hope left to these people.”

The Templar sneered into his face, and Connor recoiled sharply to avoid the punch aimed for his jaw. Hickey gained a momentary advantage, seizing the younger one’s blade arm, and the two of them grappled a moment, drawing whispered disapproval and wary glances from passersby.

“Fancy words there, boy,” Hickey jeered, panting slightly as the Assassin stubbornly refused to let him go, the jaws of his wolf locked. “But you're just stickin’ your nose into somethin’ you don’t know a thing about.”

Connor snarled, but was barely able to bite out a reply when he choked, a sudden force jerking upon the neck of his robes from behind. A hand had fastened onto his hood to drag him backwards, and the Assassin hackled, flashing a warning glare at the two soldiers prying him and Hickey apart.

Hickey finally noticed the guards as well and quickly fell to babbling, playing the simpleton, though they did not hesitate to restrain him as well. Connor gave an impatient breath but did not resist, merely eying the circle of guards.

One sternly began proclaiming their arrest, sharply holding out an arm when the Templar attempted to bolt. Hickey seemed even more on edge than the Assassin as he pulled fervently to escape, loudly weaving a tale of tempers after a failed wager. His very tone was laced with pandering and false innocence as he completely blamed Connor for starting the fight, offhandedly commenting that this was probably how all savages responded to losing.

The Assassin bristled at the accusations, straining against the ones holding him and starting to angrily point out Hickey’s involvement in baser crimes, but his argument had not even been half-formed when a heavy blow into the side of the head robbed him of words and consciousness both.

He came to his senses with difficulty, fingers curling against the stones pressed to his chest, as a migraine seared behind his eyes. Connor lifted himself onto his forearms and forced open his eyes, struggling a moment just to focus on the grime inches from his face. There was merely drugged confusion at first, until instinct flashed tension into his stance when he realized that the familiar weight of his weapons was gone from his side and back.

Connor dragged in a sharp breath and was on his feet almost immediately, disregarding his headache as he comprehended the walls around him, the scent of closely packed breath and bodies rancid in the air. The Mohawk was quick to bridle the instinctual panic as he examined the cell; but his initial gasp must have been audible, for a mocking scoff sounded from the cell next to him.

“Bet you're wishin’ you let Georgie put that collar on you now, eh? None of your kissin’ up to ‘im’s gonna matter if ‘e don’t even know you're in ‘ere.”

The Assassin scowled, catching the fiendish glint in Hickey’s eye, even through the slivered chink in the wall. “At least he is safe from you now,” he responded with a quiet growl. He took a somewhat unsteady step back to lean against the barred door, pressing the heel of his palm to one temple in an irate attempt to banish the ache.

“Might be too early to be sayin’ that, lad,” the Templar said with a smirk, jerking his chin towards the figure approaching the cell on clipped steps.


	9. Serpent Promises

The old ache and ire burned him from within, and Connor snarled, turning and flicking his left arm in a practiced movement before he remembered the absence of his hidden blade. Still, that did not stop him from tensing his stance, from glaring with open malice towards the man approaching. The wolf in him scratched its frustration into the stone floor when it found its prey within blade’s reach – for the first time in many years – but found too that it could do nothing.

He seriously considered charging the barred door as Lee met his eye with cool contempt, observing the younger one’s silent rage. Looking upon the Templar’s face drew the memory of that day like a shard from a wound; the pain feeling raw again, the scars torn open. He coiled, pointlessly readied to lunge, the fury almost more than he could bear.

Abruptly, a second figure stepped between the cell door and Lee, calmly blocking Connor’s view. “Stand down, Assassin.”

He jerked back, startled into obedience. He had not noticed his father’s presence at all, not when his wolf could all but taste Lee’s blood, had perceptually carved out his heart. The anger waned, and Connor shakily regained his composure, glancing to Haytham with a frown and clouded eyes, his head lowered to shade his face with a hood he did not possess.

“Deaf to my advice as usual, I see,” Haytham said to him in greeting, smiling pleasantly.

“Your advice was never bidden,” he returned in a growl, beginning to feel the choked vulnerability as the Templars closed upon him. The Mohawk took a cautious step away, moving to the edge of the doorway so he could keep the three in sight. Hickey was just visible leaning heavily against the bars of his cell, flashing Connor a twisted grin.

“I reckon this is my rescue then, gents?” Hickey asked languidly, drawing the conversation to himself and glancing expectantly to his allies, though neither made any move to release him.

“I should leave you here for spoiling the plan,” Haytham replied dryly, not a hint of sarcasm in his tone. “We could ill afford any mistakes at this point.”

“Wot?” His face fell visibly. “Come off it, ‘Aytham--"

“It’s your own fault that you were caught,” the other Templar reminded him smoothly. After a pause however, he shrugged, exchanging a shadowed glance with Lee. “But no matter, I’m sure there are ways to salvage it.”

Hickey lifted his head, catching onto the train of thought with significantly less discretion. “Ah, a public hangin’ then?” he asked almost gleefully. “Bet the commander’d be interested in seein’ that.”

“I doubt his advisers would allow him near any sort of danger,” Lee cut in irritably, glancing to the Assassin and sharply keeping Hickey from carelessly divulging their plans.

“True,” Haytham acknowledged. “But the opposite would be a different matter entirely.”

“So I am to be bait,” Connor said crossly, if only to remind the Templars that he could hear every word. “You wish to kill Washington should he come to secure my pardon.” He should have long expected it from his enemies, but he loathed how they continued to think him either a child or a brute, incapable of grasping subterfuge.

“Oh, can you understand the speech of men?” Lee derided him, blatantly unimpressed. “No one was speaking to you, savage.”

Connor hackled, but it was Haytham who stopped the heated exchange. He set a hand on Lee’s shoulder and nodded towards Hickey, his gaze sharp with the barest hint of warning. “Bring Thomas to the warden and have him released. He’ll need to be ready to join the Continental escort later.”

“...At once, sir,” Lee said obediently, if a little begrudgingly. He fetched a nearby prison guard to have the cell opened, before leaving with Hickey in tow, the latter pausing a moment to give the Assassin a rather mocking wave.

Granted a moment of privacy, Connor looked to his father with a guarded eye, the wolf in him pacing its unease.

“Relax, boy, we don’t need you dead, at least not yet,” Haytham spoke lightly, though the words did nothing to console him. If anything, the Assassin grew even more wary, mistrustful of serpent promises. Unhindered, the other continued, “I thought you might indulge my question this time, seeing as you were so keen to beleaguer me last we met.”

Connor hesitated briefly, before nodding once. “Pose it then, but I do not promise that I will answer.”

“Your name.”

The younger one frowned, taken aback at the odd query, before he answered a little snidely, “I do not believe that is a question--"

“I wish to know your name, boy,” Haytham clarified with a rather lofty smile, pointedly ignoring Connor’s gibe. “I am getting a little weary of referring to you simply as ‘Assassin.’ Surely you’re more than that.”

His birth name came first to his tongue, but he held back, feeling that even the simple act of speaking his actual name would expose him sorely to his enemies. Instead, the Mohawk lifted his chin, meeting his father’s eyes and stating clearly, “My name is Connor.”

Haytham cocked his head in masked surprise, the name evidently familiar to him. After a pause though, he chuckled, remarking quietly to himself, “Sentimental old fool.”

The Assassin blinked, but had little chance to respond as the other left on clipped steps, calling back easily over his shoulder, “Good to meet you, Connor. We can leave this conversation for another time - Charles will come to collect you shortly, and I expect you’ll be prepared.”

Quite abruptly, he was alone, and Connor took a step towards the back of his cell, admittedly feeling a little lost. He glanced to the bare catches of sunlight filtering through his barred window, before lowering himself slowly onto the cell’s rough mattress. The wolf of him set its muzzle upon its paws, resting but alert.

The wait stretched into hours, but he refused to shut his eyes, heavy as they were with disquiet and the weight of the cage.

As was promised, Connor soon felt the whispered scarlet presence approaching, and he lifted his head slightly, unmoving but glowering at Lee through the bars. The Templar regarded him with contempt, but he followed his orders with rapt expertise nonetheless.

The cell grated open, and the Assassin was on his feet within a breath, lunging for the doorway as any beast from a snare. However, Lee moved faster than he expected. Connor only managed a strangled growl as a forearm was pushed into his throat, throwing him against the cell wall. He struggled, but the pressure was relentless, and his strength flagged after too long without proper rest or sustenance.

“Don’t think I never realized how long you’ve stalked me these past months, seeing me as helpless prey,” Lee hissed, meeting the narrowed, indignantly flashing eyes. “You think too highly of yourself, boy.”

Connor did not answer, and only continued to push against the arm restraining him, to fight for every breath. However, the position sparked some recognition in the Templar, and he spoke derisively, "I thought so. You were that child in the forest all those years ago, weren't you? Don't tell me you joined the Assassins simply because of a decade-old grudge?"

“I said I would find you,” Connor managed, his teeth bared as he fought to form the words. He was suffocating slowly, he knew, and the wolf in him lashed out all the more wildly from the knowledge.

Still, Lee was unconcerned by either his words or struggles, and continued to study him with a haughty gaze.

“Master Kenway sees his Mohawk woman in you, and that is evidently enough for him to forget those who have stood by him for so many years.” Connor paused, frowning at the edge in Lee's tone, and sensing a frustration that he could not quite grasp. Jealousy? “You blind him with sentiment, and now he cannot seem to decide what to do with you, predisposed as he is. Had it been up to me, you would have been dead long ago, half-breed.”

The Assassin said nothing in response, but the wolf in him growled its hunger, staring piercingly into the eyes of its long elusive prey.

Lee drew away slightly, startled, meeting the flashed gaze with recognition. After a moment, however, the surprise turned to revulsion, and a sneer twisted his face. He pressed deeper into Connor’s throat, oblivious to the younger one’s choked protests as he spat, “To see _his_ eyes on the face of a savage – it’s disgusting.”

Connor wavered as darkness seeped into the edges of his vision, but the wolf in him picked up on the momentary distraction like blood on the wind. Lee had forgotten to keep his distance, and the Assassin exploited his mistake without hesitation, sweeping out the other’s ankle and unbalancing his already awkward stance.

The Templar stumbled forward, nearly knocking his head into the wall, and Connor swiftly pivoted to the side, slipping from Lee’s grip and out onto the walkway that encircled the prison’s third level. He fumbled for the support of the balcony rail, gasping his next few breaths through his constricted throat, and coughing against the ache, though he was not given a chance to recover.

Lee surged out of the cell and grabbed at him, but the Assassin retreated backwards sharply, quite unwilling to be caught again. He glanced over his shoulder, and only lingered long enough to glower directly into Lee’s face, before vaulting over the railing.

The drop barely registered to him as he swung from the rail and landed lightly on his feet upon the second floor. The guards stared at him in some shock, evidently standing at attention and waiting for Lee to escort him down. Their ranks drew a veritable line straight for the exit, and Connor took the path at a sprint.

The soldiers at the outer edges of the building almost did not notice him, their attention turned instead towards the courtyard. Connor knew without a doubt that the commander had already arrived, and could only hope that he was not too late.

He pushed his way through the guards – merely distracted spectators at the moment – and managed to make his way onto a terrace that overlooked the prison grounds. Washington was a distance below him, his cape whipping behind him as he walked purposefully toward the building with three Continentals at his back.

The commander seemed distracted, and completely missed the sudden spatter of crimson as Hickey turned his bayonet upon the other bodyguards at his sides. His spun movement as he cut into his feigned allies seemed almost manic, and he lifted his weapon towards his target with the same, cocky grin.

Washington turned much too slowly, the blank shock visible on his face as he looked upon the musket barrel. Connor simply reacted, throwing himself from the balcony without thinking and blatantly disregarding the precarious height. The rush of cold evening air tore at his breath, and what little remained was forced from him as he caught Hickey around the shoulders, dragging the Templar with him to the ground.

The Assassin managed to soften the fall with a roll, but the impact still jarred him and Hickey both, straining their very bones. Connor growled aloud as the two of them tumbled several feet across the courtyard, and gouged up clouds of dry earth. They rolled to a halt with the Templar’s back to the ground, but Connor failed to react quickly enough, losing his hard-won advantage in an instant.

Commendably, Hickey had managed to keep his grasp on his musket, and he coughed out a string of profanity as he viciously caught Connor in the ribs with the rifle stock, knocking him sideward and reversing their positions.

The wolf snapped out desperately as Hickey managed to steady himself on one knee and level his rifle, his lip pulled back in a sneer. Connor ignored the flare of pain in his palm as he struck the bayonet aside with his bare hand, pushing the barrel from him and redirecting its shot into the dirt inches from his face. The Templar recoiled, openly shocked, and was unable to recover.

Connor pushed himself to his elbows and latched onto the bayonet a second time, at the base now, deftly twisting it free and spinning it into his palm. His first strike dropped the still-smoking musket to the ground, and his second, the body of its wielder.

The churned dust settled around him as fog, and the Assassin lowered his blooded blade, panting quietly and favoring his lacerated hand. He rolled onto his side in an attempt to stand, but the exertion broke upon him in a wave, and he faltered, almost faint from the tempest of movement in the last few minutes alone. He lifted blank eyes as the soldiers finally reacted to the assassination attempt, forming ranks about him and leveling loaded muskets.

Connor had a moment to ponder the possibility of his death, but he blithely found that it did not bother him, merely sat comfortably upon his heart.

“ _Hold_.” The barked out command was barely audible from the distance, yet the authority it held was unmistakable. The guards halted their advance and turned, almost as one. The Assassin managed to lift himself to a sit, catching sight of Washington striding forward through the circle of rifles.

“Sir, you shouldn’t--" one soldier attempted to caution, but the commander simply stepped past him without sparing the man a glance.

A hand was offered to him, and Connor flinched back a little involuntarily, his wolf still on edge, its ears still folded wary. Finally, however, he relaxed his coiled stance, abandoning the bayonet in the dust and taking the proffered assistance.

Washington helped him to his feet, but when the Assassin tried to step back, he was only able to blink in some bewilderment as the elder one clasped his shoulders warmly, thanking him for his aid. It was unusual for him, but after a moment of perplexed silence, Connor could not help but answer with a small smile, dipping his head and almost chuckling as he returned the gratitude in kind.


	10. None in Exception

Despite his initial reluctance to even come near the army medics after his internment at Bridewell, sheer exhaustion eventually persuaded Connor otherwise. Though he was guarded and almost convinced of a second assault as his wounds were tended to, he was admittedly grateful for the treatment, as well as the later return of his equipment.

After respectfully declining the commander’s offer for lodging, the Assassin returned to the homestead to much clamor from its residents. He lightheartedly waved off their concern at his prolonged absence, excusing himself from their warm – if somewhat overwhelming – company to make for his room, and sleep as the dead.

Connor kept to the homestead grounds for much needed recuperation, but soon found that the incident at New York would be far from the last of his involvements with Washington’s forces.

In the months that came, the commander himself called on him to aid in skirmishes, and Connor found it ever more difficult to refuse him. Achilles frowned upon his interference, though the young Assassin nevertheless answered the summons for the more treacherous battles. Even then, he was careful to bridle his contributions, never remaining on the field for its entirety, but seeming a storm itself in the choice moments he did.

Most often, he would act the scout, running just ahead of the marching Continentals and taking down the British army’s advance patrol. The wolf in him could mark the appointed informant with a glance, and could fell him in the same breath; granting Washington’s soldiers precious moments of an advantage with a single arrow.

On other instances, he would come as the relief of a failing contingent, driving back the onslaught of British soldiers with tomahawk and hidden blade just long enough to cover a retreat. Connor’s involvement was spare, but the commander’s nod of approval each time he loosed the wolf to the hunt spoke volumes of his gratitude.

Despite his unhindered participation during the fight itself, the Mohawk remained wary and silent whenever he lingered in the encampment during the dawn or aftermath of the battle. He walked only at Washington’s side and kept to the edges of the camp, oftentimes feeling an unwelcome guest, a passing stray.

But with time came tolerance, and eventually, approval. Connor found less malice in the soldiers’ eyes at each succeeding week, at every bloodletting in which he lent his blade. He by no means enlisted himself into their ranks, and Washington graciously seemed to accept him as a force in reserve, but the men began to look upon him differently all the same.

They saw the Assassin’s intermittent support almost as a natural phenomenon, he an unbound wind that vanished as it pleased, but promised relief in even the direst battles. Eventually, the soldiers bolstered enough courage to hail him with fabled nicknames whenever he passed, not meant to be unkind, though Connor did find some of them quite absurd.

It was only with Washington that he found a measure of ease, the wolf in him quite drawn to the imposing presence. Their conversations were pleasant, if brief, and Connor grew convinced that the Continentals would accomplish little without him.

Winter came with much unchanged, bringing snow and biting wind, as well as a desolation that began to decay the army’s morale from within. The revolution pressed on, but its supporters fell by the score to cold or fear or enemy muskets, blackening the survivors’ courage as if with sickness.

The Assassin observed them often, motionless as the soldiers passed him in shivering formation, sympathetic to the ice in their bones. With some difficulty, he did not interfere, remaining a pale shadow near indistinguishable in the blizzard.

The discontent branded even the commander, and Connor more than saw this after a particularly odd conversation, which arose after a brutal skirmish that cost many lives, for precious little gain.

“I am always grateful for your help, Connor.” The statement was quite sudden, unexpected, and the Assassin turned to Washington with a cautious frown, though the elder one did not shift his position from beside the camp’s barricades. He saw exhaustion in the downcast eyes, but not even his wolf could read the deeper frustration it sensed in them. “If only the rest of your people were more...”

Connor took a step forward as Washington faltered to silence, offering after a moment, “Sir?”

“Do you have no influence over them?” the commander questioned almost exasperatedly, folding his arms into his coat in a habit that Connor had long noticed as a sign of nerves. Washington lifted his head to glance to him imploringly, and the Mohawk could see the beginnings of despair, almost the eyes of a beaten dog.

“I fight not in their name, commander,” he responded after a stretched pause, looking away in unease at the very suggestion. “My ideals are not those of the Kanien’keha:ka. I cannot ask them.”

At the guarded answer, Washington quickly waved a hand, seeming startled that he had voiced his concerns aloud. “Of course, of course, I... Please, forget I ever mentioned it.” The commander returned to his position by the stockade, staring out to the ice-burnt forests.

“In truth, I am a little distracted,” Washington admitted, glancing to Connor as the younger one settled comfortably at his shoulder, leaning on one of the cannons. “Already the men are troubled, but just this morning, we lost one of the supply caravans. Assurance of warmth and a meal is all that’s holding some of them together.”

“A British ambush?” the Assassin ventured, though the other only shrugged quite dejectedly.

“There is no way of telling, no witnesses were left alive. Worse though, I suspect it may be one of our own involved.” Washington glanced to Connor’s patient expression, but only smiled a little tiredly in reply. “I know you wish to help, child, but we have no leads. I will send for you if we gain any more information.”

The Assassin nodded obediently, and took his leave soon after.

Connor returned home quite by instinct, his mind elsewhere. Winter, it seemed, had sent all his enemies into hiding, and not even the Templars seemed keen on stirring up trouble. The very elements waged war upon them all, sleet and snow held none in exception, and needless bloodshed was last in the minds of the starved, of the freezing.

For once, he kept his hood in place even upon reaching the safety of the homestead grounds, letting out a sigh that curled before his face in a cloud. He trotted up the path, thinking only of the manor hearth, but halted in some confusion as he noticed another person on the road ahead of him.

The tall figure stood before the front step of the manor, gazing thoughtfully to the upper windows past the brim of his tricorne. His stance was relaxed, his arms folded quite elegantly behind him, but the sight of him sparked blank horror in the Assassin, which flared at once into rage.

Fear was forgotten as Connor threw himself between his father and the doorway, the wolf in him snarling wild, its bared fangs snapping. “ _Get back_ ,” he lashed out angrily as he advanced upon Haytham, the threat flashing in his narrowed eyes and drawn hidden blade. The Templar calmly retreated a few steps, turning his shoulder to evade the swept out weapon and lifting his hands peaceably. “I was going to knock, boy, not break the door down.”

Connor’s glare flicked from Haytham to the manor, then to the other fire-lit homes just visible along the grounds. “How dare you even step foot here,” he hissed. “If you have hurt anyone...”

“Ah, these people are under your care as well?” his father asked drily. “Honestly, if you keep vowing to protect everyone, you will end up being unable to protect any--”

“How did you find me?” the Assassin demanded, rudely interrupting the statement. Tension was written into his very frame as he looked upon this enemy so deep in his territory, the one place he had thought sanctuary.

Haytham only responded with an imperious smile that offered no answers, before turning from him to inspect the old building with a measure of interest. “In truth, you do not seem the type to live in such fine quarters,” he remarked, the gibe spoken casually. “Would you not prefer to be with your people?”

“Do not act as if this is a cordial visit,” Connor snapped, stalking forward again in open challenge. “Leave, now. I will not have you anywhere near here.”

“Much as I appreciate your hospitality,” Haytham said, quite easily sidestepping the advance and prompting them to circle each other, the distance between them taut. “I am still here on business. Do you honestly think it could kill you to hear me out?”

“Yes.”

The Templar chuckled at the blunt, humorless response, spreading his hands in a shrug. “Fine, granted, but you could give me a chance all the same.” He smirked, cocking his head knowingly. “Keep in mind, had I wanted you dead, you would never have seen me.”

Connor’s eyes were still narrowed, but he slowly took a step away, giving his answer by flicking his hidden blade back into its cradle. Haytham lifted his head cheerily, turning towards the road and calling back to him, “Brilliant. Follow me then.”

The Assassin scowled incredulously, but his father only spoke over his half-formed objection, “I said _come_.” Haytham beckoned him with an impatient hand as he headed up the path leading out of the homestead. Though still indignant, Connor had little choice but to hurry after him.

“Just tell me what you want,” he snapped at Haytham’s back, his voice cold, the wolf in him still hackled and pacing. The Templar only met his gaze over his shoulder, and answered mildly, “For one, Benjamin Church.”

Haytham observed the involuntary flicker of recognition in the younger one’s eye at the name, before continuing, “Church has decided to selfishly take his own path, crossing both your Order and mine, and I want him punished. In return, you can have what he’s stolen from those friends of yours.”

“I might have known the Templars were behind the theft,” Connor scoffed quite derisively, but Haytham stopped sharply to look back, almost causing the Assassin to walk into him.

“Are you not listening to me, boy?” he asked with some annoyance. “Benjamin Church is no brother of mine. This foolishness is his own doing.”

“Why can you not seek retribution on your own, then?” Connor returned brusquely, looking to his father with dubious eyes.

“Let me finish,” Haytham admonished, though not harshly. “There have been rumors of Church’s operation somewhere south of Valley Forge. I did spend some time searching for him there, although I was--"

“Inept?”

“Unsuccessful.” The Templar glowered at him warningly, though Connor was far from threatened, now that he could see why he was needed.

“I still do not understand why you came to me though,” the Assassin commented after a moment of walking in silence. Haytham quirked a brow at him, and Connor elaborated a little impatiently, “There are countless others who know these lands as well as I do. Surely you would rather seek them first?”

The Templar said nothing for a moment, and when he replied, he did not quite meet Connor’s eye. “I merely thought that there would be some value in spending time together. After all, you...” Haytham hesitated for a breath, but was quick to mask the waver with a chuckle. “After all, you may yet be saved from your ignorance.”

Though the insult was thrown to him flippantly, Connor could not help but frown, wondering – perhaps foolishly – whether the Templar for once spoke with sincerity.


	11. A Silence

By the time the two of them had arrived at Valley Forge, Connor had tolerated just about enough. Common decency alone kept him from simply abandoning Haytham in the middle of the frontier, or at least leading him past the den of a particularly irritable pack of wolves. The man’s patronizing remarks – as well as his insufferable blindness to see the conceit in them – had persisted throughout their walk, and grew no better after they reached their destination.

“Well then, get to it.”

The Assassin gave Haytham a rather withering look as the other watched him expectantly, perhaps waiting for him to immediately run off in the appropriate direction.

“I am not a hound,” Connor ground out, deliberately turning his back on the Templar and scanning the path before them with a practiced eye. “Give me a moment.” He paused to gather his bearings, glancing to the smoke of cooking fires from the nearby encampment, and mentally marking the supply routes he had walked many times during his early involvements with the Continentals.

He chose a path and set a hand on a nearby tree, scaling it almost without thinking, and calling drily back to the Templar, “Try to keep up.”

The wolf took little notice of the other figure as it set out onto the trail. He sifted through the many tracks pressed into the snow, followed the scraps of cloth and refuse inevitably left in the wake of an advancing convoy, who knew little of the ground they walked. They did not mean to do so, perhaps, but their steps etched the earth behind them like a wound.

For several long moments, Connor thought of nothing else, simply lost to the scent, to the hunt. It had been near an hour when he slid to a halt, hearing muttered oaths and the scratching of damp wood somewhere on the path ahead. He finally thought to look back for Haytham, and found with slight disappointment that the Templar had somehow managed to keep pace with him.

The Assassin leapt lightly back to ground level, coming to stand at his father’s shoulder and following his gaze to the hunched figure just visible a distance from them. The man only seemed intent on either repairing or wrathfully further destroying his cart, and did not even notice the two watching him.

Connor glanced towards Haytham, but the other only cocked his head at him, gesturing expectantly forward. Upon realizing that the Templar had little intention to lift a finger to help, he scoffed an impatient breath and stalked the rest of the distance to the target.

As he approached, Connor stepped deliberately upon a scrap of a broken cart spoke, the sharp snap causing the man to jerk in surprise, and nearly slip on the ice as he looked up. “Do you work for Benjamin Church?” the Assassin asked calmly, tilting his head to meet the mercenary’s wide gaze.

Abruptly, the man was running, and Connor stared after him for a stunned moment, a little confused that he had spooked him so easily.

“Well played,” Haytham said with a smirk, patting the younger one’s shoulder rather patronizingly, though Connor was quick to swipe the hand off.

“I did not see you trying anything,” he ground out, pushing past him and breaking into a sprint after the fleeing man.

There was no real danger in the mercenary slipping away, but Connor still snatched onto the trailing coat tails and dragged the man to a halt with a measure of impatience. He threw him against a nearby trunk and pinned him with a light hand, the other already seeming petrified by the Mohawk’s mere presence.

“I say again. Where is your master?”

“I don’t know,” the mercenary stammered, his hands lifted in pleading, or perhaps in a feeble attempt to ward off the attack. “I was just making a delivery, same as usual. We were ordered to gather in the camp north of here, maybe you’ll find him there.”

Connor gave a short nod and released the man, allowing him to stumble back a few steps. The mercenary glanced from him to Haytham, evidently unable to believe that he was permitted his life, before he bolted off along the path.

The gunshot slit the air with a roar, striking the mercenary in the back and dropping him into the dirt with barely a whimper. The wolf recoiled, startled, turning in search of the threat. However, Haytham only calmly reloaded his still smoking pistol, remarking almost disinterestedly, “North, as he said. Fortunate to know that he wasn’t lying.”

Connor recovered swiftly from the shock, snarling, “That was not necessary.”

Haytham raised a brow, quite unruffled by the younger one’s temper. “No? How else did you intend to keep him from warning his allies? Maybe you think it would have been kinder to break his legs? Cut his tongue out perhaps, hmm?”

The Assassin faltered for a breath before he scowled. “Do not put words in my mouth.”

“If only that were possible,” his father said wryly. “Still, you’ll eventually learn that your supposed pity causes nothing but trouble.”

Haytham paced forward and stared off in the direction the man had been heading, perhaps trying to catch sight of Church’s alleged base. “Go infiltrate the camp, and see what you can discover,” he instructed, folding his arms thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of Church’s men were as loose tongued as this one.”

The Assassin had already dejectedly turned to leave, when he thought to ask, “What about you?”

Haytham seemed almost offended at the question, and Connor glowered at the contemptuous look he flashed at him. “Never you mind. Just do as I say.”

Connor shook his head but started down the trail regardless, wondering absently and quite childishly how long it would take Haytham to realize it should he simply abandon him and return home.

Freed of his chain, the Assassin was able to find the mercenary camp with relative ease. Overlapped cart tracks wove in from all directions, and congregated upon a gathering of tents and makeshift storehouses. The base seemed little more than a meeting point, but the stacks of crates and crude wood buildings formed a veritable fortress, winding and filled with men lounging about their guarded cargo.

The thick brush and waist-high snowdrifts masked his presence easily, and Connor crouched low as he waited for mention of his target, evening his breath and conserving precious warmth.

He was well used to remaining patiently still – sometimes for hours at a time – until his prey happened upon his hungry snare, or came within range of his bow. However, it occurred to him a little too late that perhaps the Templar who waited on him was not quite as used to such inactivity.

“Look what we found!”

Connor looked up sharply, the wolf in him abruptly tense and upright, its ears flicked forward. Three figures came into view past a mound of sacks, two pulling a third between them and calling the interest of their idle comrades. Another mercenary came forward to meet them – the foreman, Connor guessed, after having observed him taking account of the supplies entering the base.

He frowned in some exasperation as he recognized the captive, guessing that Haytham would later tell him that he had allowed himself to be seen, whether or not it was actually true.

“Look at the finery on ‘im,” one mercenary interjected from the sideline, studying the Templar almost appraisingly. “Probably a Yank spy.”

“Nah, this one’s something special. The boss said to keep an eye out, and deliver him to New York once he showed up,” the foreman spoke with a rather malicious smirk, leaning towards their captive. “And he told me all about you, Haytham.”

The Templar did not struggle, perhaps too dignified for such things, but the flash in his eye would have been enough to send lesser men cowering. “Then you realize that doing this isn’t wise.”

The blow caught Haytham sharply in the jaw and he grunted almost inaudibly, falling back a step. From the bushes nearby, Connor only just stopped himself from rushing forward, the wolf in him unexpectedly indignant and snarling.

“You’re not exactly in a position to make threats,” the mercenary sneered, giving a nod to his two allies, who dragged Haytham upright and began to pull him to a nearby shanty. The Templar glanced precisely towards where Connor crouched hidden, before dropping his head and chuckling, “Not yet.”

Though briefly wondering whether his father deserved such treatment, Connor came to his rescue nonetheless. He circled into a better position, hackling a little vengefully at the rising sounds of the beating, as the mercenaries took out their boredom on their unfortunate captive. It was with little remorse that he lunged out of his cover and fell upon the first man, who gave a rather strangled cry as the wolf leapt seemingly from the ether and sank fangs into his throat.

He spun to free his hidden blade, lashing a brand of crimson into the snow beside him, before catching the second mercenary mid-turn and bearing him to the ground with a blade to the chest. Haytham did not hesitate to pull free of the corpses, drawing a fine rapier and killing the foreman with a deft, effortless strike.

The lives were taken in a flurried moment, and the spilled blood had already begun to cool before the other mercenaries thought to avenge them. Even in the tangle of battle, as men charged in from the forest or from out of the crevices of the encampment, Connor could not help but glance to the Templar at his back. He had been threatened by Haytham many a time, true, but he had never been given the chance to see if his skill matched his pride and stately disdain.

His father fought with the same, cool detachment with which he treated enemies and allies both. Mercenaries charged him with raucous cries and brandished muskets, but he met each with a rather scornful eye, and a flicked movement of his blade that tore open necks and faces with the same effort as a drawn breath. He almost did not seem to move, but enemies fell at his feet by the dozen, as if on their own accord.

The Assassin rather unintentionally contrasted him, constantly turning and coiling about the open space, and gouging his tomahawk through bone and sinew. Together, they held their ground even against the significant numbers, and it was not long until the snow itself had darkened with discarded bodies and blood.

Connor had just begun to dare think that Haytham owed him some gratitude for this, when he realized that the Templar had vanished from his side. He bodily threw back the mercenary he was grappling with, looking around in time to hear Haytham call out to him.

“I shall meet you in New York.”

“You are leaving? _Now_?” Connor shot over his shoulder, finally catching sight of his father heading into the forest.

“Consider it a test,” Haytham said brightly, turning smoothly to avoid an oncoming musket and reaching a clear line into the trees. “If you cannot handle these louts, I see little point in working together.”

The Assassin shook his head in some exasperation, but was forced to turn his attention to the remaining mercenaries, who came charging upon him in a swarm. The stragglers barely noticed Haytham’s departure, seeming to reach a consensus that they would at least take one life in exchange for their brothers’.

Connor’s eyes narrowed, the wolf of him folding its ears at the suddenly heightened aggression, the spark of mingled hope and madness granted to the dying. He returned his tomahawk to his belt and drew both wrist blades, meeting the charge as he would a rush of water.

He lunged directly for the weaker edge of the enclosing enemies, lashing into any who dared come within reach, and finally breaking free of the crowd with an upward sweep of both blades. He turned as he skidded on the trampled snow, coming to a rigid halt at the edge of the encampment.

Only a handful remained, staring upon the bloodied figure with hollow eyes. Connor could see clearly that the desire to pursue him had gone. He simply lifted a single crimson-dipped blade, and they scattered from him like startled deer.

Alone, he caught his breath, taking a final glance around the deserted camp, before heading east.

Haytham’s steps were quite easy to follow – he had evidently avoided the road, and pushed for the straightest path back to the city – but Connor was a little startled to catch up to him so quickly. His father had stopped next to a rocky outcropping, leaning against the snow-brushed stones just out of sight of the road. Connor slowed to a halt and met Haytham’s gaze with a question upon his face.

“I’m merely waiting for a more opportune moment,” the Templar answered tightly, flicking his attention back forward. “God knows how much chaos you stirred up back there. Church’s men are likely to still be on alert.”

Connor scoffed quietly, openly unconvinced. However, he paused upon noticing the other’s imbalanced stance, saw that he was leaning upon the rock more out of necessity than choice. The Templar caught his scrutiny though, and met it with irritation.

“Just go ahead without me, I don’t need your cynicism right now.” Haytham glanced to the Mohawk’s subtly concerned expression and added crossly, “Or your pity.”

The other hid any evidence of it, but Connor could still sense the amount of pain he was in, could see the way he favored his ribs, likely bruised from his severe beating earlier. Though the wolf in him sniffed at the prone figure, his father’s own spirit only hissed and drove it back with a flash of teeth.

The injury would not kill him, but pushing through untouched snow was difficult enough, even for the fit.

“If I leave you here in this condition, you may be eaten,” the Assassin remarked with a small smirk, only half in jest. He settled comfortably against a trunk to his father’s right, turning his gaze to the quiet forest. “We can depart after you have... _decided_ it an opportune moment.”

Haytham scowled at the mocking comment but for once did not answer. A silence lay between them, cautious but oddly companionable, and in the few minutes that they rested, the idea of a truce did not seem quite as distasteful.


	12. Ember Discarded

He was unsure whether it was due to his father’s earlier show of weakness in the frontier, but Connor found himself almost struggling to keep up with Haytham upon reaching the close crowds and paved stones of the city. The Templar strode forward through the press of the masses seemingly without effort, clearing a path through even the most rowdy of market patrons. Perhaps it was his bearing or attire, but many chose - no doubt involuntarily - to move out of his way.

The Assassin scowled as he was all but left behind, though he patiently waited for openings in the crowd, careful to slip through unnoticed. He was reluctant to draw the attention of passersby, even with something as simple as a touch. More than once had he carelessly done so in the past, only to be scorned by some of the more sensitive citizens, who either flinched back from him or threatened violence.

He would take the beasts of the frontier over such a lot any day.

The Templar seemed to almost have forgotten his presence, thus Connor was somewhat taken aback when Haytham halted abruptly, and caught his arm as he passed him.

“Hold a moment. I was meant to meet a contact here,” Haytham spoke evenly, staring out across the relatively deserted plaza. “If we’re lucky, it should lessen our efforts quite substantially.”

The younger one pulled free a little crossly, and took to observing the space in which they had stopped. To their left, the skeletal belly of a half-built warship curved up into the darkness, a titan that served a reasonable meeting place. Connor moved a few steps away from his father to absently look over the imposing wood frame, when the wolf in him lifted its head abruptly, ears forward.

The click of a pistol sounded from behind him – near deafening in such a secluded area - and the Assassin flicked around quite by instinct, lifting his own firearm as he did. His eyes widened slightly as he recognized the figure, but narrowed in an instant as he snarled out, “ _You_.”

“I do not approve of this, Master Kenway,” Lee said tightly to his fellow Templar, though his glare remained fixed upon Connor’s face, his flintlock upon his heart.

“Regardless, we need him,” Haytham answered, pacing towards them and seeming completely at ease despite the two growling at his sides. “You must admit the Assassins are as adept in hunting us as we are them.”

“Do you really expect me to still believe this to be a truce?” Connor asked rigidly. “I am not a fool. How can I possibly trust you if you so blatantly put me at a disadvantage?”

His father set a hand on each of the lifted pistols, flicking a warning gaze between the two of them and pushing the barrels downwards. “Come now, Connor, surely you aren’t this naïve. In case you’ve lost count, you have dwindled my Order's numbers to almost nothing – of course I would make use of my last remaining man. That does not mean I intend to go against my word.”

Haytham glanced calmly to Lee. “But know that I will not tolerate any disobedience from either of you.”

The Assassin slowly returned his flintlock to his belt, but drew away a safe distance, the wolf of him lashing its tail in unease. Lee obeyed as well, though the tension remained written into his stance. Connor watched him with narrowed eyes, quite expecting him to strike out again without warning.

Only Haytham continued on unruffled, folding his arms behind him as he returned the conversation to the task at hand. “Church was evidently expecting to have me as a guest,” he informed Lee, rather pointedly disrupting the seething glare he was directing at Connor, as the other Templar was forced to turn to him instead. “You’ve located the likely hideouts he’d have here in the city, yes? Which of them is the most fortified?”

“The abandoned brewery, naturally,” Lee answered after a reluctant pause, openly making an effort to regain his composure. “Though much more conspicuous than his other bases, it is the most heavily guarded.”

“I see. We shall start there then,” Haytham said with a nod, turning to leave and motioning to Connor with a distracted hand. “As for you Charles, I need you to speak with the harbor master. No doubt Church has already chartered a ship for his escape. Delay if you can.” He glanced to the doubt upon his fellow Templar’s face, and said firmly, “I know that words are your strength. Leave the prowling through back alleys to me.”

“I don’t wish to leave you with _him_ ,” Lee spat, glancing to the Assassin with open hatred. “The mongrel would sooner put a blade through your back than look at you.”

“Think well on whom you are really insulting with that term, Charles,” Haytham spoke levelly, and Lee quailed slightly, looking away and murmuring something indistinct. Connor glanced to his father with some disbelief, wondering whether he should dare think that the words were spoken in his defense. He had little time to ponder such thoughts, however, as Haytham beckoned to him quite insistently, and as Lee excused himself and departed in the opposite direction.

Haytham swept into an alleyway and found a handhold on a small shed, pulling himself onto the rooftops with an ease that did not seem befitting for his age or his earlier injury. Connor followed only after glancing towards Lee’s retreating back a final time, needing to remind himself decisively that a better opportunity would come soon enough.

They ran across the brittle tiles together, the sharp clatter of their steps quite ignored by the evening crowd below. Here, it seemed, was the most neutral ground for them, where it did not matter whether their skills had been gleaned from navigating branches or London rooftops. Neither had cause to mock the other, and for once, Connor heard the wolf in him howl, sensing the presence of kin.

The roof edges ended abruptly at the waterfront however, and the Assassin was a little reluctant to be forced back to the earth. Laborers seeking distraction and drink made up most of the crowd here, and paraded in flocks towards the taverns. The two walked on for several more minutes, until Haytham slid smartly to a halt several steps from a fortified gate, which was guarded by a small collection of mercenaries.

The Templar shook his head with a dry chuckle, remarking, “Quite unfortunate. I was hoping to wave you past the guards, but it seems Church has already replaced them with several I’m unfamiliar with. They would be suspicious of you immediately. Stay here, I’ll return shortly.”

He would never admit it, but sentiment held him as well, and Connor felt a measure of alarm at the danger that Haytham was potentially throwing himself into. He snatched forward for the other’s shoulder when he turned to leave, but just missed grabbing the edge of the fluttering cape.

The Assassin gave an exasperated breath as he pushed through the crowd after Haytham, snapping impatiently, “Father, wait--”

Connor froze in some bewilderment, the rest of the statement dying on his tongue. The term had slipped from him quite by accident, and the amused glance that the Templar threw over his shoulder helped little. The younger one shook his head, masking the discomfort behind a scowl and speaking tightly, “I am simply trying to help. We should do this together, or not at all.”

“A noble gesture,” Haytham said finally, after rather frivolously stretching the uncomfortable silence. “All right, what do you propose then?”

The Assassin unslung his bow and quiver from his back, tossing them to his father as he made to leave the alley. “Give me a moment.”

Connor returned within a few minutes, tugging the unfamiliar cut of a mercenary’s coat into a more comfortable position about his shoulders, and still wiping the trace remains of the man’s blood from the sleeves. His own clothes were folded under his arm, as was the unfortunate mercenary’s tricorne, which he had taken in afterthought.

Haytham smirked upon his return, his amusement only just restrained.

“What?” the Assassin asked a little defensively, feeling some discomfort from his father’s intent gaze. “You meant I was suspicious from my attire, correct?”

“Among other things,” the other replied with a chuckle, returning Connor’s bow and watching him with some scrutiny as the Mohawk hid his remaining equipment within the alley. Haytham came to observe him at arm’s length once he had finished, fussing a moment over the knot in his scarf, and correcting the orientation of his tricorne.

“It shall have to do,” he said finally, leading the way back towards the brewery. “Do keep your mouth shut though, and let me handle the guards.”

Connor gave an irritated huff at the command, but obeyed nonetheless. The mercenaries at the gate parted for Haytham without comment, but the Assassin bristled as one abruptly crossed his musket across the doorway, rudely barring his way. He restrained his blade with difficulty as the mercenary provokingly tapped the flat of his bayonet against his collar, sneering, “And where d’you think you’re going, savage?”

The rifle was jerked suddenly away, and even Connor was somewhat startled as they all turned to look at Haytham, who had disarmed the man in a swift movement. “He is my son,” he stated, the calm challenge spoken in his lifted brow.

The mercenary glanced between the two of them and apologized hastily, letting them both through and almost too eagerly shutting the door behind them. The Assassin attempted to catch his father’s eye, but Haytham only discarded the musket to one side and strode forward without him.

Connor sighed and fell in step just behind him. Neither said anything for a stretch, and only the laughter and calls of the distant crowd filled the space between them. Eventually, even that died away as they moved deeper into the halls of the darkened brewery, and it was thus a little startling when the Templar spoke.

“She and I actually met much the same way as this,” he remarked lightly, the shadow of a smile at his lips. “We were far from allies, yet common enemies gave us an opportunity to work together.” The words were unexpected, as was the warmth in the glance that Haytham passed him, but Connor found himself hesitantly returning the small smile all the same.

“How is she, by the way? Your mother?”

The question rather jarringly reminded the Mohawk with whom he was speaking and he looked away abruptly. He was forgetting himself – this man was a Templar, foremost. The scars of memory were evident as he answered bluntly, “Dead.”

A flicker was visible in the steel eyes, but Haytham betrayed little of his emotions beyond that. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said simply.

“Oh, are you?” The Assassin could not keep back a bark of derisive laughter, and the edge in his tone was sharper than he intended. “Unfortunately, your regrets come much too late.”

Haytham hesitated here, the puzzlement breaching his usual calm. “What in blazes are you talking about?”

“Do not tell me you so quickly forgot that order you gave?” Connor demanded, his wolf spirit stalking a rigid line. “Was it so _easy_ for you to give a command that robbed so many of their families and homes? She _died_ that day. Or did you not care?”

Anger sparked here, not merely from the dredged up memories, but from the suggestion that the very ones who had orchestrated the burning – the tragedy that had torn his mother from him – had already forgotten it. Evidently, it had meant nothing, an ember discarded into the wind.

“I gave no such order,” the Templar said incredulously, honest confusion just visible in his gaze. “You must be mistaken, I would never--"

“You need not concern yourself,” Connor interrupted harshly, pushing past the other without bothering to spare him a glance. “We are here only for our common enemy, yes? There is no need to discuss other matters.”

“Ah good, have you two finished with your argument, then?”

Both Templar and Assassin recoiled sharply, pressing back towards each other, as they were quite abruptly made aware of the shadowed figures advancing upon them from the edges of the room.


	13. Deeper Heart

The wolf took in the extent of the threat in a glance, acutely aware of his father doing the same at his back. They each had a hand on a pistol, their target chosen and already dead in their minds’ eyes. The twice dozen mercenaries drew closer in a formation taut as a noose, and for a breathed second, the impending fight balanced upon the dead air.

However, it only took the slightest movement from a single man – who remained wisely away from the crowd, toward the deeper heart of the brewery – for all in the room to halt.

Connor lifted his head slightly as he found his prey standing just beyond the rabble. He shifted his blade arm, taking wry note of how constricting the mercenary’s uniform was, but before he could even take a step, Haytham had already advanced forward as far as the mercenaries would allow. A little involuntarily, the Assassin moved to cover his flank, the wolf in him growling at any who dared attempt to take advantage of Haytham’s distraction.

“I must commend you for your quietude through all this, Benjamin,” the Templar said, his voice hard and somber. “To break an alliance spanning so many years, then have the gall to think you could avoid the consequences.”

“You really choose to speak of loyalty, Haytham? After what you have done?” Church scoffed as he paced just out of pistol range. Connor silently took note of his tread, seeing that he was unwittingly keeping close to one door in particular, which would undoubtedly grant him a swift escape if necessary.

Haytham almost lazily drew his saber, clearly unthreatened by the nearest soldiers, who attempted to warn him down with lifted muskets. “I would rather you be silent if you have no intention to speak sense.”

The Assassin had impatiently glanced away to wait for the elder ones to finish their barbed exchange, when he realized that Church was sweeping him with a rather appraising eye. He frowned a little guardedly, noticing that Haytham was looking to him as well.

“I see your new lapdog is of a wilder sort than Charles,” Church spoke, the disdain behind his smirk painfully clear. “That boy stood by you for just as many years, and see how quickly you’ve replaced him. Just admit that you are no different from me, seeking fortune where it pleases you.”

“Seeking fortune is one thing, taking that of another is something else entirely,” Connor ground out, somewhat unsure whether he was speaking in his own or in his father’s defense. “I am just here to reclaim what was taken. Leave me out of Templar affairs.” Church only scowled at him, perhaps seeing the statement as impudence, but it was Haytham who interrupted.

“Benjamin, you are not about to leave here alive. The least you can do is call down your guards, and face your fate as a man.”

“I am not a soldier, Haytham. Or have you already lost track of the tools you’ve hoarded into your service?” Church questioned drily, before sparing Connor a withering glance. “And as for ‘reclaiming’ these supplies, boy, I might remind you that these are muskets forged of British steel, and bandages sewn by British hands. It does not take intellect to work out whom they should service.”

Church began to wave a hand to order his mercenaries forward, but both Connor and Haytham had leapt into motion in the same moment. The Templar threw himself directly into the thicket of enemies, clearing a path with a merciless blade edge. Behind him, Connor held back the mass from following. The wolf in him braced low with jaws agape, able to force retreat in some with a glare alone, and with a deft strike of his tomahawk where he could not.

Through the shouts and musket shots, the Assassin distractedly heard a door slam open as Church made for his escape route. However, the solid thud of a body on wood, followed by the protesting creak of hinges as the door was again forced open were clear evidence that Haytham had managed to follow.

A little belatedly, he breathed his annoyance as his father yet again left him behind, and he hurried after him. He could see the advantage granted to him as the mercenaries crowded after him into the narrower space, and Connor blatantly threw himself between them and the doorway, blocking any from pursuing the Templars.

One scoffed and tried to push through all the same, but Connor seized him by the back of his jacket as he passed, sweeping his legs out from under him and shoving the unlucky man’s face into the wall with shattering force. The mercenary hit the ground like a fallen tree, and the Mohawk calmly stepped back into the center of the pass, staring a challenge at those remaining.

“Seems the mongrel’s forgotten his place,” another sneered, bravado well masking the weariness in his voice. “Best we put him down, boys.”

For a moment, Connor held his own well, his tomahawk gouging into throats and faces, and spattering the close walls with every swept movement. However, the mercenaries quickly changed tactics, charging and withdrawing in quick succession, and sating themselves with small victories.

The Assassin received little more than minor cuts from the prodding bayonets, but the insolence vexed him more than the pain. He lashed out each time, but the mercenaries only darted in and out of range, covering each other and baiting him as they would a cornered beast. Both his shots were long spent and he steadily lost ground, until he abruptly became aware of the wood doorframe colliding with his back.

The advantage veered in an instant, and just as suddenly, the mercenaries were upon him. Connor snarled, anger flashing in his slitted eyes and bared teeth as he pulled violently against the two who had managed to seize his arms. The mercenaries stumbled forward in their attempts to hold him, and another pair hurried over to help, though their eyes betrayed fear of the thrashing wolf.

He growled audibly at the newcomers, causing both to flinch for a precious moment before him, and allow the Mohawk to lunge between them. The four mercenaries collided heavily with each other, and there was a tangled moment of confusion as they fought to keep their bayonets from taking the throats of their allies. Connor dug his hidden blade into the last arm restraining him, and tore free in a rain of crimson.

He made for the doorway and shut it behind him, easily finding the bolt that Church had haphazardly attempted to lock. Connor ignored the mercenaries’ loud attempts to pursue him, and hurried along the shadowed corridor, his wolf spirit’s nose set to the ground.

The sharp snap and flash of a flintlock sounded from somewhere ahead of him, and he pushed into a sprint. The hallway gaped into a large, high-ceilinged room, within which he saw two figures, one standing and one fallen.

Connor slowed to a halt and Haytham greeted him with an absent glance. The Templar returned his attention to the body and stooped beside it, slipping a silver ring from Church’s hand. The elder one did not meet his eye as he pocketed the shard of metal, only answering the silent question, “He forced my hand. I have no regrets.”

The Assassin nodded impartially, and began to pace around the edge of the room, taking account of the stacked crates still nestled safely against the brewery walls.

“I am satisfied as well,” Connor remarked, glancing to his father as he distractedly wiped the blood from his blade. “The commander will be pleased to have these returned – as will his men.”

The derisive huff was barely audible, but the Assassin knew that Haytham had made little attempt to mask it. He glowered at him, though Haytham only bit out, “Don’t tell me you are still pursuing that lost cause. I had thought--"

“Were you expecting me to change my mind sometime during this truce?” Connor asked in some disbelief, though with also a measure of honesty to the question. “You think too highly of yourself, _father_. I stand by what I said when we first met. I am nothing like you.”

He pointedly began to push past the Templar, but Haytham caught him by the sleeve as he did. Connor flinched back, lip pulled back in a snarl as he freed himself with a deft flick of one arm. They were tense a moment, simply staring upon one another from either side of the room.

“The only difference between myself and those you aid is that I do not feign affection.” The words were snapped, Haytham’s usual calm brittle at best. He was looking at the Assassin with hard, solemn eyes, reflecting what could almost be mistaken as sympathy.

“You are obviously living a farce in your mentor’s eyes. To him, you are naught but a balm, a substitute for a child lost.” The words were harsh and the Mohawk scowled against them, but the other had turned and advanced on him before he could answer, backing Connor up a cautious step.

“As for Washington? He is no better. You are one of his dogs, of which he has many. If you died in battle before him, he would step over your still-warm body without a backward glance.”

“And the Templars are different?” the younger one challenged, seeing easily where the accusations were leading. “ _You_ are different? You who burned a village to the ground in your selfish hunt of myths?”

“I don’t care how many times I must say this – I had nothing to do with any such attack. Think me harsh or selfish, or the Templar cause unfit, but do not _dare_ claim that I was the cause of her death.” Though not hostile, the hardness in Haytham’s eye was adamant, and for once, Connor felt a sliver of doubt.

After a pause, he gave a subdued breath and looked away. His wolf withdrew with a growl, ruffled but unwilling to pursue the fight. As such, Connor failed to react in time, and only realized that the Templar had lunged at him after it was too late.

He was thoroughly startled as Haytham seized the collar of his shirt; choking him and throwing him back into the middle of the room. Connor bristled and began to retaliate with a blade, but was stilled a split second later by a volley of muskets overhead. Though already deafening, the sound swelled into a roar as one shot ignited a store of gunpowder.

He saw little more than the initial flash past Haytham’s shoulder, before the Templar flicked his cape up over one arm to shelter them both, as if a hooded wing. The blast hit them in a surge of heat and noise, and though they both managed to keep their balance at first, the explosion of several more barrels threw them apart and across the floor.

Disoriented, Connor made the mistake of gasping a breath as he fought to stand. He lost vital seconds to cough severely into the crook of his arm, feeling the flames and smoke billow about him, and seem to coil deep within his lungs. The wolf in him shied back from the inferno, a whined growl in its throat.

A groaning creak sounded over him, and he only just managed to gain his feet in time to dodge a collapsing beam. He retreated away from the walls, breathing tightly through the cloth of his sleeve and narrowing his eyes against the floating ash. The firelight branded his vision, but he was just able to make out the figure climbing for the relative safety of the rafters.

“Do hurry up,” Haytham called to him, the careless statement almost a suggestion. “This is hardly a time for sight-seeing.”

Connor shook his head but saved his breath, finding handholds on a smoldering stack of crates and a shattered banister, before joining his father above the flames. They ran from the fires that raged just below them, and threw curled tongues that steadily ate away at the wooden supports.

Their footing grew increasingly less stable as the brewery began to fold around them, and though they managed to stay out of reach of the flames, with every meter of height they gained, the smoke grew steadily more dense. The Assassin struggled to ignore the pounding at his temples, knowing that the suffocation threatened them as much as the fire.

His vision wavered, until he could see little beyond the silhouette of Haytham sprinting just ahead of him. As such, it was a little jarring when they hit a dead end, and Connor only just managed to keep from running into the Templar’s back.

He looked up to see Haytham staring about with an urgency he had rarely seen in him, his slitted eyes flashing over the forearm he was using to keep the smoke at bay. Eventually, he caught what he was searching for, and beckoned to Connor as he hurried to the loft doors.

The Assassin frowned as Haytham struggled a moment with the latch, snapping an oath under his breath. “It’s stuck. Connor, see if you can find something to pry it open.”

Connor glanced to either side and simply backed away to the far edge of the tier, the wolf in him flicking its tail with subdued amusement. His father looked over his shoulder quite too late, and the Assassin relished in the mingled dismay and irked resignation he caught in his eyes, before he slammed bodily into him and threw them both through the doorway.

The wood splintered around them, and the cold night air hit them as harshly as any flame. The next moment, they were engulfed by the deafening silence and cold of the ocean, though Connor only took seconds to gather his bearings and swim easily to the surface. He drew a much-needed breath of clear air and looked over to Haytham, meeting the sullen glare with the shadow of a smirk, before the two of them headed for dry land.

He began to pull himself from the water, struggling somewhat to brace himself on the slick wood of the pier’s sides, when a worn leather boot blocked his vision. The Assassin recoiled, looking up with a measure of alarm as he found a pistol barrel leveled to his face.

The water held him as well as any rope, and Connor met Lee’s gaze almost with disbelief as he clung to the edge of the dock, the wolf in him snarling helpless. He glanced around for his father, but already found him straightening at his fellow Templar’s side, readjusting his soaked cape and looking quite resolutely in the other direction.

“Church?” Lee questioned shortly over his shoulder, his flintlock steady between the Assassin’s eyes.

“Dealt with,” Haytham answered just as brusquely, shaking the water from his tricorne with a deft flick before returning it upon his brow. After a seeming age, he glanced back, meeting Connor’s perplexed gaze with a calm that betrayed nothing.

“Come along, Charles. I’ve changed my mind.”

With that spoken, the Templars departed, and even after the two had gone far out of sight, Connor still did not move. For a long moment, he remained clinging to the edge of the dock, his ragged breath muffled by the damp wood against his chin, and his ears filled only with the crackle of the burning brewery.


	14. Despite its Scars

A crowd had already been drawn to the fire by the time Connor managed to retrieve and don his equipment. He slipped through the line of citizens passing along water and attempting to tame the blaze, his head bowed and the turmoil in his eyes hidden. He remorselessly discarded the mercenary uniform into the flames and strode off towards the outskirts.

The wolf in him stalked its agitation, snarling hollowly into the dark. Before today, even when he had run alongside Washington’s soldiers, the Assassin had relied only upon himself, upon his own blades and barbs. For once, he had begun to consider an alliance possible, if only as a comfort that his duties were not his alone to bear.

Rarely had Connor lent himself to earnest hopes, and Haytham had evidently seen fit to correct such weakness.

The collaboration with his father had simply been a ceasefire, a distraction, not an end to their ancient war. The Templars would come for him the moment he was no longer useful, but he would not allow it. Here amid the confusion, amid the splintered remains of promises he had merely imagined, Connor could only return his thoughts to the task he had pursued for the past years.

Instinct and an exhaustion not quite of the body drew him towards home, but the Assassin realized that he could not yet rest. He frowned as he remembered the brewery aflame, lamented the loss of the Continental supplies. In the weeks to come, he knew, winter would feast on more than just those who fell to musket wounds.

When he arrived at Valley Forge, he was a little startled to find it alive with motion, the called voices and rallied formations starkly contrasting the lull in the snowstorm. The Mohawk slipped past the regiments unnoticed, hidden by both the white of his robes, and the fog of distracted eyes and thoughts.

The soldiers were preparing for an attack, there was no doubt, but Connor could not recall any such movement from the British forces. Perhaps they planned a raid – distasteful, yet far from surprising in these harsh times.

He shook his head and continued deeper into the camp, though he halted warily more than once along the way. His wolf spirit hackled, warning of a danger he could not grasp. This scent of heightened emotion was not unfamiliar on the dawn of battle, but the whisper of something darker remained, all but lending a bladed edge to the air.

Connor finally reached the commander’s tent, catching sight of Washington speaking to another Continental officer within. The one he did not recognize noticed him first, and stopped mid-sentence to stare at him with some suspicion.

The commander turned to follow his officer’s eye, and took a moment to comprehend the Assassin peering past the lashed down folds of the entrance. He seemed openly startled and gave his ally a quiet command, before coming out to meet him.

“Connor? Did you have something to report?”

Washington set a hand on the younger one’s shoulder and led him to the edge of the encampment, upon a ridge that overlooked the plains. Connor wondered briefly whether he was attempting to call his gaze away from the activity among the soldiers, though he did not comment on it. Washington knew he would not approve of raids, or any tactics that would risk innocents, he guessed.

“Yes commander, but unfortunately, I do not bring good news.” Connor heard a subdued chuckle from the other officer, and he glanced to him with a frown, wondering why he was even listening. He went on, though his wolf continued to growl at the unfamiliar man’s attention. “Benjamin Church was the one responsible for the theft, but his men opted to burn the supplies rather than see them returned. Everything was lost.”

Washington was silent for a long time, his gaze rapt upon some distant point. The Assassin stood at attention patiently, near feeling the commander’s regret in the still air – it was he who would have to answer to his men after all, would have to tell them why they would starve.

“Truly regrettable,” Washington said finally, sighing and pressing a hand to his brow.

Connor knew he could contribute little else, thus he gave a slight bow, and made to back away and leave the commander with his thoughts. However, as he did, he just missed colliding with the officer Washington had been speaking with, causing the man to nearly drop the map he had been rolling.

“Watch yourself, boy,” the officer said a little crossly as he stumbled, managing to keep his missive from furling away into the wind. The Assassin blinked as he caught sight of the contents of the dispatch, recognized the drawn landscape marred with the ink marks of battle formations.

He snatched onto the officer’s wrist as he attempted to fold the map away into his coat, almost unable to believe. Connor glanced from the depiction of the lands around his village, to the troops of soldiers departing from the encampment and heading north. “What is this?” he questioned, the calm in his voice strained.

Washington looked back tersely, perhaps only just realizing that Connor had left his side. The officer drew away a few steps, glancing between his commander and the Assassin, and perhaps unnerved by the tension in the air.

“It is a plan of attack,” Washington answered, drawing himself up into a straighter stance, as if in an attempt to weather Connor’s accusing gaze. “We received word that a group of insurgents was supporting the British forces, and it was deemed necessary to stop them.”

“Insurgents? You mean my people,” the Assassin corrected harshly, drawing back a sharp step when the other reached out a hand, perhaps in some desperate attempt to calm him.

In that breath, Connor felt a cresting of guilt, realized how long it had actually been since he had seen his village, had even consciously _thought_ of his people’s well-being. A year? Longer? No, not since Johnson, not since his first mistake, which he had subconsciously shied from. He had set himself between his tribe and the raging wars, had spread his arms to shield them, but in doing so he had also turned his back.

He shook his head and hurried to depart, withholding blame if only since he yet had a chance to stop the attack.

“You don’t understand, child. At least allow me to explain,” the commander called after him exasperatedly, trailing behind but doing little else to keep him from leaving. “We are only after those few who are aiding the British, a sparse number. The situation is much less dire, drastic measures will not be necessary this time.”

The wolf’s dread silence cut more than a snarl as Connor halted, and slowly turned to meet the rather imploring gaze. “This time?” he asked softly.

There was a pause that drowned all else within the camp, and the Assassin could only stare upon the commander with disbelief, with hurt he had thought long numbed. The withered hope that he had misunderstood the statement did not last, and his Sense plainly lit a truth he could not bear to acknowledge. Washington seemed flustered, but his voice was calm when he answered.

“Yes... yes, I suspected you would have been old enough to remember,” the commander murmured, almost to himself, folding his arms with obvious discomfort. “But not yet, I think, old enough to realize the necessities of war--”

“ _Necessities_?” Connor practically spat, stalking to one side to look the commander in the eye. “War or not, you cannot possibly justify taking the lives of so many innocents!”

The anger of his very spirit - so recently wounded by Templar hands - blinded him for a moment, and Connor nearly realized too late that he had instinctively drawn his blade. He stopped just short of Washington with his knife at his throat, ready to be drawn in a deft sideward movement, ready to avenge the lost and the broken.

The other Continental officer had tensed at the sudden show of aggression, cocking and lifting his rifle sharply. However, Washington just as quickly lifted a hand to stop him, though his neutral gaze remained fixed upon Connor. The Mohawk did not meet his eye, and only glared at his own poised blade, feeling the wolf in him snap its agitation, but finding too that he could not deliver the killing strike.

The commander did not move, a concerned frown just creasing his brow as he looked upon the Assassin, who stood rigid before him for several long seconds. Finally, Connor gave a snarled breath past bared teeth, and flicked away from Washington just as quickly as he had advanced.

“A final warning,” he growled out quietly without looking back, his stance taut. “Choose to follow me or oppose me, and I will kill you.”

The hand that seized him was not forceful, but the Assassin stopped all the same, almost involuntarily. His wolf, for once, did not lash out, still held as it was by past memories, past loyalties. “I understand that you stand first with your people, and that the tragedy those years ago was a mistake – but you can prevent a repeat of it,” Washington said firmly, and gestured to the officer beside him. “Go with my general here, have the insurgents stand down, and he can order the soldiers to do the same. Neither side will need to resort to violence.”

Connor still refused to look at the commander, but considered the offer stoically, his eyes upon the far off ridge of Kanatahseton. He yielded after a moment, perhaps as a final favor, speaking, “I will cooperate if only to avoid needless bloodshed, but do not mistake that for forgiveness.”

He swept toward the edge of the camp without another word, expecting the officer to follow. The ire clouded him, and Connor completely missed the rueful glance that Washington passed his general as he made to catch up with the swiftly retreating figure. The commander met his ally’s expectant gaze, hesitating before giving a simple nod, which was answered with a salute.

With that, Washington remorsefully turned his back on the white wolf, and knew he would not see him again.

Connor eased out of his sprint only upon drawing up beside the final troop leaving Valley Forge, intending to accompany them to the first attack point. He did not speak it, did not wish to resort to it, but if he failed to convince his people to stand down, he would not hesitate to protect them. If it came to bloodshed, he had no doubt where his allegiance lay.

The wolf in him pawed at the ground, eager to run, but Connor held back. He limited his pace to one that the Continentals could keep up with, only just able to bridle his frustration as they slowed him significantly. Thus when the general called an abrupt halt in the middle of the path, he gave an impatient breath that plumed into the winter air, turning to meet the officer’s eye with a scowl.

“Why are we stopping?” he demanded, glancing to the stretch of flat, empty fields that surrounded them on all sides. Dead wood fences were all that marked the white landscape, and he could see no possible cause for concern or interest.

“Normally we arrange a firing line for this, but there’s no time for such formalities,” the officer answered coldly, a smirk twisting his lip. Connor’s eyes narrowed even as the words were formed, but the first musket shot had sounded before he had managed to reach his tomahawk.

The Assassin cried out from the wrenching pain that lanced into his back, and he lost his footing on the icy path. He caught himself against a fencepost, pressing a hand to the wound through his ribs and throwing a burning glare over his shoulder. The Continental who had shot him looked honestly repentant, but the smoke from his musket barrel contradicted any supposed sympathies.

His wolf bared its fangs against the rising threat, but felt little actual desire for blood. Though he had never thought these men his allies, neither had they been enemies.

Connor knew this, and held to his personal virtues, but sense told him that he had no other options. There was no cover or escape anywhere within reach, only long stretches of furrowed earth that would allow the contingent a clear shot from any direction.

He dropped his head briefly, outwardly in defeat, though merely in reverence for the second shattered alliance that night, the second wounded trust.

No other soldier was able to loose another shot as the Assassin sprang forward in a flurry of blades, etching deeply into the snow with both the blood of his enemies and of his own body. He did not hold back even as he tore open one soldier from hip to shoulder, threw the face of another upon an ally’s bayonet. His wolf howled for him to _live_ , and he answered it without question.

Connor gasped into the frigid air when he finally stopped, his fevered mind just comprehending the weight of the corpses, the congealed scarlet on his hands. He shook his head once, viciously, and pushed into a run towards his village.

Adrenaline bore him a good distance through the frontier before the ache in his back flared again, near felling him a second time. Connor paused in a crouch beside a wide trunk, gritting his teeth against the pain as he examined the injury with his other hand. The leather of his belt had caught some of the blow, but he could feel the musket round twisted deep into a stained nest of sinew and cloth.

His head reeled, and he realized dully that the chances of him reaching the Continental rendezvous – much less the Mohawk village – were all but nonexistent. He pushed on stubbornly regardless, knowing that to falter here in the open could kill him, even during this calm of the winter storm.

Over time, he completely lost track of where he was going, the paths he had learned in his childhood seeming tangled and incoherent now. In his half-delirium, his Sense fixed upon haphazard scents and sounds, upon dangers and trivial details both, as if a drowning man grasping at reeds.

The Assassin lifted dull eyes upward, faltering to a halt as he picked up a haunting cry on the wind. His clouded thoughts went first to a chorus of wolves, but he soon realized that he had merely heard the voice of the wind itself; rushing through the hollow of some structure he could not see. He did not quite remember his next few steps through the snowdrifts, pressing on in a daze until he finally came upon the source of the sound.

The bones of the old white church stood taut against the storm, its gaping windows and doors bared to the elements. The claws of time and scavengers had long torn the shutters from their hinges, had long dragged the cast iron bell from its steeple, yet the structure stood proud despite its scars. Its empty shell howled at a world that had forgotten it.

Connor stumbled into the stark but welcome shelter, settling at the corner by the door and instinctually curling in the lee of the wind. He simply sat for a moment to catch his breath, the wolf of him silent and brooding.

As the tempest roiled just out of range of him, the Assassin focused on his injuries. He made several attempts to clean the wound upon his back with his knife, but snarled aloud as he found that he could barely reach it. Twisting to properly position his blade only sent a tongue of fire into his ribs, and cost him precious breath. His muscles twitched minutely from the strain, and he eventually gave up, merely stopping the bleeding with a fold of cloth.

He leaned his head back against the chipped paint and splinters of the church wall, his sluggish thoughts realizing that he was not safe here. The blood trail he had left at every staggered step would take some time to be covered by snowfall, and one did not need to be a hunter to follow such a deep crimson brand. The predators would come, he was sure, be they beasts or men.

Just before consciousness slipped from him, Connor knew – abruptly, and without a shard of evidence to support it – that one such predator was already approaching. He closed his eyes, the wolf in him alert with its ears towards the door. He was not afraid.


	15. Utter Emptiness

He had faltered into restless sleep without quite realizing it, and thought nothing for what felt like a lifetime. Time slipped from his grasp, the fragments of memories as fleeting as the flash of a sparrow’s wings. Connor staggered through a darkness that tore at him as a storm, and for some time, he questioned whether he would ever escape it.

It came as a shock to him then, when he felt a presence close at his side. The Assassin stirred indiscernibly as he fought for awareness, finding it a struggle just to lift his head, his wolf’s senses slow to rouse. The figure was barely more than a haze to him in this accursed delirium.

A warm touch brushed his forehead, more in assessment than concern, and he had the impression of a beast disinterestedly sniffing a corpse. The other drew nearer, and though Connor did not sense any actual threat, his raw vulnerability set him on edge. His wolf spirit coiled, snarling at shadows.

Thus when the light brush transferred to his throat, alarm sparked clarity into his senses, and the Assassin lashed out, uncaring that the other was likely only searching for a pulse. His fist swept little more than empty air however, the jerked movement doing more harm to him than his intended target.

Connor faltered in bewilderment at his complete lack of coordination, and a moment later, a hand caught his arm to prevent a second strike. He thrashed reflexively to free himself, fighting into a seated position and only distantly noticing that he had been lying on a cot set in the corner of a simply furnished room. He retreated further back into the wall, until a voice cut through his indignant panic. “Easy,” Haytham quieted him sharply, his impatience clear.

Though it took a moment to comprehend that the Templar was not attempting to kill him, the presence was still far from welcome. “Leave... leave me be,” he managed to snarl, the threat barely audible.

“Had I done that, you would no longer be breathing,” his father said irritably, releasing his grip only after Connor hesitantly relaxed his blade arm. He looked around with yet dulled eyes, and the wolf in him shook itself, perplexed from the unfamiliar environment. His Sense came haltingly to him, but he was able to guess that the building was an old fort - long abandoned, if the unnatural silence was any basis.

Slowly, the Assassin touched a hand to the bandages wrapped about his bared torso, feeling neat sutures lined up beneath the material. He glanced to Haytham with reluctance, the gratitude not exactly forthcoming. “Was this your work?”

His father met his gaze with a lifted brow. “Don’t be absurd, I took you to a doctor. Do you honestly think me the coddling type?”

Connor said nothing further, unable to remove his hand from the wound at his side. The ache had settled into a dull throb fortunately, though he tensed again when he remembered how he had received it. He looked to Haytham sharply, but had not even spoken when the other frowned at him, evidently noticing the anxiety in his eyes.

His voice wavered, though Connor struggled to hide it. “My people?”

“Gone, I’m afraid,” the Templar answered calmly, clearly expecting the question. “Not many were killed, but little remains of the village. They fled to the west, so I’ve heard, and I don’t expect that they’ll return.”

Connor could not bring himself to respond and dropped his head, only able to stare upon the ground without seeing. The realization that he had been left behind did not quite pain him, but the failure – and the utter emptiness it left in him – was suffering in itself. Every trial he had faced in the past years, every life taken and pain borne, had been in pursuit of an end that no longer existed.

“It was of your own volition. These are the acts of the man that you helped to ascend.” There was no attempt to soften the words, the truth allowed to lay its wounds.

The Mohawk snarled under his breath and pushed suddenly to his feet, wavering only slightly from the chill of the exertion. He set a hand on a table in the middle of the room to keep his balance, and pushed past Haytham towards the door.

“Where is my equipment?” Connor demanded, a little belatedly realizing that neither his hooded robes nor any of his weapons were in the room.

“You’re more likely to hurt yourself than anyone else in that condition,” his father reminded him, unruffled by the Assassin all but upending furniture – some out of irritation, others by accident – as he scavenged for some semblance of clothing. He pulled on a few pieces of a colonial’s garb, only intent on departing from Haytham’s presence as soon as possible.

“I do not care, I am leaving. I have had enough of this.”

“Oh? Did you have more pressing engagements?” Haytham asked, examining a nearby bookshelf and pointedly doing nothing to stop him. Connor halted despite himself, and for several breaths, he only glowered at the door without moving to open it. He would not admit it, but he felt lost, never having considered that he would miss the threads of his myriad responsibilities.

“I thought not,” the Templar said casually. “That aside, it would not be wise to stride about the city while there is still talk of the attempt on the commander in chief’s life.”

The Assassin turned to him in confusion, and Haytham tilted his head slightly, a smirk at his lips. “Dreadful, is it not? They say it was the act of a criminal that Washington released from prison some months ago.”

There was some silence, in which Connor paced the room, glancing through the narrow window and tamping down a sudden desire for open sky, his wolf’s urge to run. Recovery came first, he knew, much as he loathed it. “He was a threat,” he spoke almost dejectedly, a feeble defense.

“But you did not actually kill him, that I find most strange,” his father remarked. “No matter. I’m sure you realize by now that I have need of you again, else I would have left you there in the frontier. And don’t look at me like that – you can fool no one. You wouldn’t just walk away from one to whom you owe your life.”

“That may be true, but you have nearly taken that life on other occasions,” the Assassin ground out, but continued reluctantly after a pause. “What would you have me do?”

“Something simple for now. There has been much activity among the British troops in the city. Unfortunately, I have been unable to learn anything concrete.”

Connor frowned, realizing that this could not be mere reconnaissance, but in truth, he found he could not object. Either from a begrudging gratitude, or from an unwillingness to be indebted to the Templar, he nodded once and obediently made to leave.

“Connor.” He turned at his name, just in time to catch his left blade bracer, which Haytham had slid across the table to him. The Templar only smiled lightly, saying, “You shall have the rest when you return.”

In the few minutes it took for him to the traverse the interior of the fort, Connor took note of the sprawling rooms, and wondered whether this was where the Templars had been operating; the den in which they had plotted. Though the corridors rarely branched, there were a reasonable number of rooms for the members of the Order he had been picking apart over the years.

A sudden set of footsteps ahead stopped him however, and the wolf in him hackled, recognizing the tread, as well as the roiling crimson aura. Lee emerged from one of the side doors, adjusting the sleeves of his coat as if he too had been preparing to leave the base, but he caught sight of Connor almost immediately.

They exchanged mute glares, before the Assassin scoffed impatiently and continued on as if he had not seen him. The Templar, however, would have none of that and evenly stepped forward to block his path.

“You know, I am _tired_ of you looking down on me,” Lee hissed, his voice soft but no less dangerous. “I have held your life in my hands thrice now – does that mean nothing to you?”

“Given that you failed each of those times, I believe you already have your answer,” he replied flatly, attempting to push past, but the Templar only intercepted him again. Connor halted rigidly and scowled in warning, but the other was clearly unthreatened.

“Then perhaps a more lasting reminder is in order.”

Connor flinched back and sharply struck aside the hand snatching for his throat, but Lee was undeterred and continued to advance on him. The wolf in him shied, not in fear of the other’s rage or wrath, but from the realization that the flicker of jealousy he had first seen in Bridewell had been stoked into near madness. The Templar looked upon him with the eyes of a rabid animal.

He sidestepped another lunge, but the Mohawk could feel a creeping pain in his back, as adrenaline and his agitated breath burned the still healing wound. Connor swiftly released his hidden blade, noticing that the other had not realized that he was armed.

If there was a time to kill Lee, it was now.

Yet even as he saw the opportunity granted to him – one that was almost too perfect – the Assassin hesitated. What purpose would his death serve? Who was he to question his father’s conviction that Lee could replace Washington, could promise a better future? It had been the commander, after all, who had lain bare that not everyone had a place in the new world that the revolution would forge.

The indecision held him for a long moment, before Connor retracted his blade and caught Lee’s next strike with one hand, twisting viciously and redirecting his momentum into the wall. He kicked out before the Templar could retaliate, winding him and discarding him to the ground.

For a breath, he glowered down at the other’s furious expression, before turning his back and continuing along the corridor.

His wolf, still sharply aware that the Templar was not finished, reacted just before the sound of the pistol shot. However, Connor quickly realized that his sidestep into cover had not been necessary. He looked back in confusion at Lee and Haytham; the latter calmly gripping his ally’s arm after having redirected the gun towards one wall, and the former just as bewildered as he that the Grand Master had even been nearby.

Haytham stepped away with an air of satisfaction, dusting the embers of the flint from his sleeve with a deft sweep. “I don’t recall giving any orders to kill this one,” he remarked lightly.

Connor could not help but smirk at Lee’s momentarily flustered expression, but the Templar was quick to recover. A frustration that he had evidently been keeping hidden surged into the open, and he angrily cast his empty pistol to the ground with a clatter.

“He has the blood of three of our brothers on his hands,” Lee spat, pacing restlessly and staring at Connor with blatant hatred. “Master Kenway, forgive me for speaking out of turn, but you cannot possibly excuse his actions just because he reminds you of those days you spent with that s--”

“Tread carefully, Charles,” Haytham interrupted coldly, the flash of a threat clear in his eye.

Lee faltered, struggling somewhat to regain his composure as he finished, “...that _woman_.”

The Grand Master was silent for a while, his pace controlled, though the slight tension rang in each step. Finally, however, he turned towards Connor, his expression unreadable.

“That is not why he is still alive,” he said finally. “Though perhaps it was wrong of me to hide the reason from you.” The Mohawk eyed his father somewhat guardedly as he approached and withdrew something from his pocket.

“You are right, Charles, our numbers have grown thin,” Haytham spoke over his shoulder, sparing the still-disconcerted Templar an even glance. “And I simply thought of a means of amending that.”

He met the Assassin’s clouded gaze, before tossing him the small metal object. Connor caught it quite instinctively, and eyed Church’s silver ring with some confusion.

“Join us, son. Think it your birthright.”


	16. Demands of Circumstance

Years ago, his answer would have been easy. The Assassin he had been would have scoffed and allowed the ring to fall from his hand, would have defiantly met his father’s eyes as he did. Soon after, he likely would have returned prepared, seeking to kill Haytham and Lee both.

However, too many times now had he felt the pain of being lain open, of having pieces of his very being torn from him. His people had fled, his purpose and convictions gone with them. His ties to the Assassins and the Continentals had not prevented his dire fear; indeed, had practically ensured it. It tormented him to no end, wondering whether he never should have left his village.

Meager as his bond to his father was, it at least bore the promise of stability, of permanence.

Connor shifted the metal band between his fingers, only just aware of the two watching him and awaiting some form of response. Even Lee seemed to have momentarily forgotten his temper, his expression twisted with suspicion that was not quite unkind. However, his wolf still hackled against the thought of those around him, ally or enemy, still or no longer, mistrustful of all.

The void within him was crippling, and he realized that it had been much too long since he had needed to make a conscious decision. His allegiances of the past had been mere reactions, demands of circumstance. A night of fire had drawn him to Achilles, and the threat of wars by distant kings had driven him to Washington. For once, he was faced with a choice of his own, though it balanced upon a blade’s edge.

It was odd to think himself separate from the tragedies that had shaped him, but it was only in such detachment that he could find truth. The pain of emptiness was not a curse, but a means for clarity.

None deserved to be swept up by the mistakes of men they had never met, by battles that did not concern them. None, Connor knew, deserved the fate that had been so mercilessly forced upon him.

“I cannot,” the Assassin – for, yes, that was who he was – finally answered quietly, and lifted an unwavering gaze towards the other two. He spoke plainly but without malice, the words a simple fact rather than a challenge.

Haytham said nothing for a moment, his composure unshaken, though Connor caught the slight furrow to his brow. His decision was a misstep then, a miscalculation of his father’s. That likely did not happen often.

“Ungrateful dog,” Lee snapped abruptly, ire masking any evidence of whether he had been expecting him to agree. Haytham caught his ally by the shoulder to halt his menacing advance, though his eyes had not left the Assassin’s.

“Take care with your words, Connor,” he said coolly, a shred of dismay tainting his voice. “I don’t know how you expect this to end.”

“I am not a child to be so easily influenced,” the Mohawk replied, matching the even tone. “Comrades and kinsmen may be taken from me, but never shall I turn my back on them willingly.”

Haytham simply looked upon him for a long while. As he had many months ago, he knew that his father was not truly seeing him, simply remembering another whom Connor merely echoed. The shadow in Haytham's eye did not linger long however, and the Templar regained his bearing swiftly, his expression a lightly indifferent mask once again.

“I suppose I should have anticipated your answer. Only one of blind loyalty could follow Washington for so long,” the Grand Master remarked. “But noble as such conviction is, it is also madness."

Connor was silent and held to his decision, any of his earlier insecurities gone. Yet, opposed as he was to Templar goals, he knew that he owed the breath in his body to them. It did not sit well with him to be beholden to his father, and if he did not repay it now, Haytham was likely to collect it at the most untimely moment.

“Enemy or not, I... I did agree to aid in your investigation. I still intend to honor that.” Connor glanced away, unnerved by how difficult it was to form the words. “But after today, no longer. Once I have repaid my debt, you cannot ask any more of me.”

The silence stretched for a span, until he looked up to see Haytham shaking his head, a patronizing smirk at his lips. Connor bristled a little; wondering whether he had ceased to take him seriously, thought him a child play-acting at war.

“You refuse my proposition, yet you are not opposed to working alongside us as if you had agreed?” the Templar asked with dry amusement.

“That is different. I offer my help, not my allegiance,” he bit out. “I will not be a servant or tool you intend to discard.”

Connor stepped forward and pointedly held out the ring, but the other made no move to take it. “A single condition of my own, if I may,” the Templar said levelly. “For today – and today alone, mind – you will obey my orders. Cling to your Creed if you must, but while you are in my company, you answer to me.”

The Mohawk did not respond immediately, wary of the implications of the statement. He eventually consented nonetheless, pausing only to slip the silver band upon his finger at a rather adamant look from Haytham. “As you wish. But know that I am no more a Templar by this ring, than that bracer marks you an Assassin, father.”

Even as he finished speaking, he glanced towards Lee, a little taken aback that he had not yet voiced his many objections. The younger Templar only met his gaze without comment, seeming to have bridled his anger; but past his composed expression, Connor well recognized the dark promise in his eye. It would not be today perhaps, but if death were to claim one of them, it would be by the other’s hand.

“I had hoped for longer, but I suppose a day is enough,” Haytham admitted carelessly, pacing towards the end of the hallway and choosing to disregard the open animosity between the younger two. “Still, we may be more effective together. Let’s be off.”

Lee swept up the pistol he had thrown aside earlier and fell in step at his ally’s shoulder, evidently ignoring the Assassin while he was yet restricted from taking his life. However, Connor hesitated, the wolf in him folding its ears at the idea of being in close quarters with both Lee and Haytham for such a long period, particularly when he was barely armed. After Boston and the warehouse, his trust came slowly.

“Would we not cover more ground apart?” Connor asked a little tightly, trailing behind the Templars from a safe distance. “If we are to investigate the British, surely we--"

“Ah, perhaps I used the term too mildly,” Haytham said, glancing back at the Assassin with a nonchalant smile. “The time for skulking and listening has past. The answers I need can only be gained from British officers, and they are not likely to speak without the necessary persuasion.”

Connor frowned at his father’s dispassionate referral to interrogation, but he held his tongue. As he followed the two out into the fort courtyard, he drew a needed breath of open air, glancing up to the bright noon sky. He felt a sudden ache of homesickness, then realized just as jarringly how long he had been in Templar hands.

The bite of winter had gone from the air, the frost that had lined the rooftops and streets replaced now with puddles of recent rain. His last memory had been of soldiers’ corpses pressed into drifts of red snow – how many weeks ago had that been? Had it been months?

He was given little time to think, as the other two disappeared into the flow of the busy crowd. The Assassin gritted his teeth and struggled to keep up, careful to swallow his protests. The gunshot to his back would collar him from climbing, but he trusted that his hidden blade and reflexes would be enough to keep him alive in a head-on fight.

The Templars targeted a British encampment within the city, and they spent some time prowling the nearby back streets, as if feral dogs. Connor only distantly listened to Lee’s report that a meeting had been called in secret, neither its purpose nor site touching paper, but passed instead in whispers.

The British officers that filed into the streets did not hide their colors or gorget, and it proved pitifully easy for the three to place their targets. The men themselves did not realize it perhaps, but their attempts to separate from each other and mask their common meeting place only drew suspicious eyes. Rarely did the crimson soldiers walk alone.

“We do not need them all alive,” Haytham reminded the younger two calmly as they closed upon the British rendezvous. About a dozen men stood among the blackened teeth of the burnt manor, thinking themselves shrouded by the bitter memories and debris of the city’s great fire. Unfortunately, Connor knew, the isolation would do nothing but lessen the witnesses to their deaths.

Haytham loosed them to the pursuit with a sharp command, indicating their marks with concise descriptions. The Mohawk did not voice it, but he took note of Lee’s rapt obedience, his father’s easy assurance that his words would be taken without question.

He sprinted low towards the right as Haytham leapt into the midst of the meeting, and as Lee made his way onto the few planks that remained of the building’s second floor. Connor caught flashes of disorder and panic through the broken windows as he circled toward the opposite exit, the wolf in him attentive. He saw Lee catch a rifle that his ally had tossed to him and fire it in the same movement, downing a man behind Haytham and granting him space to draw his sword.

He had never cared to think of it before, but the Templars depended on each other closely, and were likely no strangers to carrying out their tasks together. Connor frowned, feeling the barest stab of envy.

The Assassin slowed as he reached the doorway edge, pressing his back into it for a split second before he pivoted and caught the first fleeing soldier in the chest. He pushed his way inside, slitting the throat of another and discarding the body against an inner wall, which folded and splintered under it.

It was not quite like him, but he moved sparingly, striking out only at those within his immediate range rather than tearing through the crowd. His wolf growled its impatience at the tactic, but in his current condition, Connor knew that every breath, every flicked movement, weighted him.

An ominous hiss of flint sounded near him, and Connor flicked his gaze toward the back of the building, bristling as he immediately placed the threat. The Mohawk vaguely noticed his father look sharply over to him and follow his gaze, perhaps noticing his sudden alarm.

The wolf in him reacted more quickly than actual thought, instinct coping where skill had failed him, and Connor only later realized that he had thrown himself forward. He hit the grenadier bodily, bearing them both into one of the smaller rooms and knocking the unlit explosive from the other’s hand.

They tumbled apart, and the Assassin choked upon a gasp as he was thrown against the crumbling fireplace. He faltered briefly against the pain, only just comprehending the grenadier falling to a rifle shot from one of the Templars. Connor snarled and forced himself upright, the abuse pressing him more than he would admit.

Only three soldiers remained now, their crimson clothes marred heavily with old soot. Haytham had already cornered one against the far wall, but the other two had discarded their empty muskets and had run for opposite windows.

Lee vanished around a corner in pursuit of one, and the Assassin snatched at the other. However, he bit back a hiss as the soldier managed a glancing blow to his ribs, staggering him for a moment. The man fled with all the grace and speed of the terrified, leaving upended crates and stalls in his wake.

Connor gave an impatient growl as he nursed the ache, sparing a glance at his father’s insistent nod in the soldier’s direction, before obeying without a second thought. Only on reflection would it worry him how easily the Templar commanded him now.

The chase fortunately did not stretch long, as the soldier misjudged a turn around a pile of rubble. He slipped upon the ash-stained bricks, and the Assassin was upon him before he had managed to rise.

“Get up,” he snapped, dragging upon the back of the stained coat and pushing the soldier back the way they had come. The officer attempted to draw a small blade, but the elegant metal only betrayed it to the wolf’s eye, and Connor disarmed him swiftly. The man voiced his protest, though it only fell unheard onto the deserted streets around them.

He bound the man’s arms with cord and had already marched him back within sight of the manor, when another person flashed into their path. The Assassin started backwards, shocked as the two British soldiers fell in a tangle before him, and he looked up to see Lee following calmly, having evidently thrown his own captive forward.

“Have you no decency?” Connor growled despite himself, meeting Lee’s imperious glance and near daring him to object.

The elder one barely acknowledged him though, merely turning to look upon the two soldiers as they struggled to right themselves. “They can probably expect what is to become of them,” Lee spoke, almost conversationally. “They themselves forgo civility in such situations, why must we treat them any differently?”

The Assassin scowled in some disgust, before leaning down to separate the unfortunate captives. However, as he did, Connor realized much too late that a hand had darted for his throat in the same instant, catching him off guard and forcing him back against a nearby wall. He snarled offense, but did not struggle.

“Men, after all, can grow desperate under such threats,” the Templar continued with deathly calm, indifferent as Connor’s slitted glare bore into him. “Perhaps one got loose. Perhaps he played on your pity and killed you with your own knife, naïve trusting _fool_ that you are.”

“I would sooner be a fool than a tyrant,” he replied stiffly, painfully aware of the blade that Lee had drawn and was slowly pressing under his chin, not yet enough to draw blood.

“An empty declaration. After all, you have brought nothing but suffering and uncertainty to those around you,” Lee scoffed, though his words held more resolve than malice, and the last were nearly a whisper. “I will not allow you to blind him any longer.”

Honor held him for a brief moment, reminding Connor of the promised truce, but the sudden pressure upon the knife loosed his wolf and called its fangs.

He seized the wrist holding the blade and, unable to match the strength behind it, redirected the edge aside instead. He hissed sharply as the knife scored his shoulder, but he did not relent, turning sharply to the side and twisting Lee’s arm with him.

Their struggle for an advantage was ferocious, but remarkably brief. The Templar’s own flintlock was suddenly in his hand, and Connor fired the shot without thinking, the roar of the pistol flaying all thought from his mind.

The body fell as any other, but the severity of the act seemed to aggravate it a hundred times; the thud of the corpse echoing, the splatter of blood a river.

Connor stumbled away, the gun slipping from his unsteady fingers, and it took him several breaths to notice the figure standing at the opposite end of the alley. Even then, he could not bring himself to do more than raise his head, the wolf in him locking rigid.

Haytham’s face was half-shadowed by his tricorne as he stared down upon Lee, the sudden agitation etched deeply into his shoulders, his lips a grim line. He said nothing, but the gaze that he finally lifted to Connor sent ice into his heart, the steel eyes near unseeing and clouded with fury.

He did not need to think. The Templar ring, marred now with Templar blood, sang out as it hit the stones behind him, but Connor did not look back as he fled out onto the main street.


	17. Nothing More

The Assassin ran on, fighting to ignore the rasp of his own breath and the persistent ache in his side and shoulder. After the struggle with the British, then with Lee soon after, his already restricted strength failed.

Connor turned more than once in search of Haytham – was surprised, even, that the Templar had not caught him immediately – but he saw no sign of him. Perhaps he had not wished to abandon Lee’s body in the burnt district.

He frowned as he remembered the act, the flurry of the kill slow to impress upon his mind. He had not intended to take the man’s life at the time, had only defended himself, but the deed had been done and he did not regret it. Instead, he worried more for the pain he had inflicted on the living.

The bared hatred he had seen in Haytham’s eye burned him still.

As if drawn to his thoughts, the Assassin realized quite jarringly that he recognized the flutter of movement above, the soft footfalls on yielding wood. He glanced to the roof of the warehouse he had been passing, the flicker of the dark cloth overhead enough to prompt him to change direction.

He could not outrun him. Connor had known that before he had fled, but he had done so all the same. Here, he was suddenly reminded that flight had always been his instinct, even when he had first caught Haytham's gaze in Boston. Still, it was not his father's blade that he ever ran from, but from the unnerving cast to his eyes. They were too similar, his wolf spirit in the body of another.

It had taken him this long as well to realize – no, perhaps, simply to admit – that he had no desire to kill the Templar. From their initial meeting, Connor had set only upon those around Haytham, and never upon the man himself.

Particularly during the farced negotiations with the Iroquios elders, it had been Johnson that he had shot, not the other standing at his shoulder. Haytham had been mere feet away, and the Assassin’s flintlock would have fed upon either equally, but the possibility of killing the Grand Master had not occurred to him, not even then.

For years, Connor had hunted the Templars; had chased, had killed, had snapped at them past iron bars and the backs of brief allies. Yet in all that time, never once had he laid a blade on his father. Oh, he had attempted it at times, had toyed with the thought when irritation or anger called for it - but never had that ire drawn a tangible desire for blood.

However, his sentiments held little weight, late as they came. Haytham would pursue him across the city if necessary, and should Connor refuse to fight, the Templar would dissolve their truce by his own terms.

A sudden flash at the edge of his vision startled him, and Connor slid to a halt only just in time to evade the figure, which dropped into a light crouch before him. He caught himself and began to turn in the opposite direction, but exhaustion seeped through the break in his momentum, the fatigue and chill of blood loss falling upon him in a wave.

The Assassin’s lip drew back in an alarmed snarl as his breath seemed to choke in his throat, as the fresh laceration on his shoulder burned. The doorway he snatched onto for support gave way under his scrabbled grip, and as he fell into the ash-strewn interior, he found with some dismay that he had not even managed to leave the perimeter of the great fire.

His boots stirred the gray dust into scattered spirals, and though he managed to recover his stance and turn towards the door, his reflexes were sluggish. Connor took a disoriented step deeper into the empty room when he realized that he had lost sight of Haytham, the sudden absence of sound hackling his wolf.

He flicked his wrist blade free and fought to even his breath, but a harsh flare of agony into his back tore it from him again.

Connor could not even muster a cry as he hit the ground on one knee, barely comprehending Haytham brush past him. The Templar had merely lashed out once before drawing away from him, but the blunt strike had come with surgical precision, driven directly into the old gunshot wound.

He did not attempt to rise, only clutched at each tense breath and stared up at his father’s back. His wolf spirit quailed, ears folded, though only thin unease actually showed upon his face. The pain seemed to well thick and deeply within him, but in this abrupt stillness, it hardly mattered. The other had halted a few steps from him, his countenance decidedly blank.

“Where exactly were you intending to go, boy?” Haytham asked him with a rigid composure, brittle as spring ice. “Your supposed home is in ruins - there is nothing left for you now. I had hoped to give you renewed purpose, but if you would rather cling to shards of the lost, that is your own folly.”

“What lies are you weaving now?” Connor scowled, speaking between the gasps that he could not seem to calm. The ache constricted his chest, and he could all but feel a phantom musket round twisted into him again. “There are still others who depend on me.”

The cold eyes were once again turned to him, and the Assassin had to struggle to hold the gaze. He had known the man to be severe and decisive in his actions, but until now, this whisper of cruelty had always been carefully masked from his face.

“You mean your serfs at that homestead, yes? Ah, my apologies, I was referring to after I had finished with them.”

Connor’s shock held him for a breath, but indignation allowed him to gain his feet, his stance taut. “You would not dare,” he hissed, and though his wolf bared its fangs, it knew its threat to be empty.

“No? It would be easy,” Haytham remarked, a sanctimonious expression curling his lip. “You have made no shortage of enemies – British, Continental, it matters little. Both would see you and your cohort put to the noose.”

The Assassin lunged despite himself, ignoring battered body and failing strength, but Haytham met him without difficulty. The elder one caught his left wrist and twisted mercilessly as he passed, unbalancing his stance and discarding him once again into the ground.

This time, Connor quickly found that he could barely move, the agony holding him too well. The narrow wound Lee had left him with hampered him, and it took him several seconds just to force himself to his knees, just to realize with alarm that Haytham was making for the doorway. He braced himself upright and stared after the departing figure, his wolf clawing its desperation into the lake of ashes.

“Father, please.”

The Templar stopped neatly, though he did not turn. “Do you think me so soft that by calling me ‘father’ I would change my mind?” he chuckled, the sound humorless.

“You are angry, alone, all you have known taken from you,” Connor spoke adamantly, gritting his teeth and attempting to still his trembling limbs. “Can you actually think me a stranger to such pains? Yet even so, I at least stayed my blade from innocent blood.”

His wolf snapped at the empty air, but Haytham only met his affronted glare with a scoff. “Do not look at me as if I am the betrayer,” he said with derisive amusement, shaking his head. “I think you’ll agree that it was you who broke our terms.”

Connor bristled, though in anger or shame, even he could not determine. “It was Lee who--"

“Be silent,” the Templar cut in sternly, a dangerous glint in his eye at the mere mention of the name. “That is no excuse. His attack on you now was no different from the one this morning.”

Connor frowned in some confusion, suddenly unsure of himself as Haytham glared upon him for a span, before looking away with a quiet breath. The Templar pressed a hand to his brow in a fleeting show of weariness, before lifting an exasperated glare towards him.

“Much as it may astound you, boy, I trusted you.”

The stiffly spoken words startled Connor, but the other recovered before he could speak, straightening into a prouder stance and glowering as he continued, “After your actions earlier today, I _assured_ Charles that there was no danger. Did you purposefully spare him back at the fort to offer me a false sense of security?”

“That...” Connor faltered, somewhat taken aback that he could not find an explanation. “I did not intend to..."

“No, you never seem to intend anything,” the Templar snapped, taking several agitated steps to one side. “You are unpredictable, Connor, a danger to yourself as much as to those around you. You act on _instinct_ and do what you _feel_ is right, regardless of whether you understand the reason or consequences.”

The Assassin snarled soundlessly against the accusation, but Haytham merely answered by halting and turning to him smoothly, releasing one hidden blade. Connor tensed, though the open hostility only gave him pause. Here, he saw clearly that the other possessed no other weapons besides a single bracer, both pistol and sword lost – or discarded? – before Haytham had caught up to him.

It was only the hidden blade that promised a swift end, they both knew; was the only weapon that truly granted Connor a chance in his weakened state. He frowned, uneasy. Had Haytham long intended for them to face each other on equal grounds?

A sharp lunge towards him caused his wolf to flatten its ears guardedly, and Connor somehow found himself instinctively on his feet. Still, he only paced hesitantly, keeping outside of the Templar’s range.

“Do not act surprised. It was you, after all, who went through such lengths to prove that mercy only returns to bite,” his father said, blatantly provoking. “You always so proudly claim that you are no longer a child. Put your words to action.”

Haytham’s expression was indifferent, though the elegant metal of his knife remained steady. Connor looked upon the Templar’s blade and wondered how much death it had seen, how many lives it had cradled against its curved surface, only to break them like a promise. Adding his own to the number would likely be of no consequence.

The Assassin drew a steadying breath and matched Haytham’s stance, releasing his wrist blade and thinking wryly on his father’s words when he had refused allegiance to the cross. That decision had sealed their fate, as much as had their diverging ideals, which sparked and rejected one another as oil on water. Indeed, how else could he have expected it to end?

He looked upon the man who sought to kill him, and knew then that dreams should be left to sleep.

They circled, their Senses equally blazing and trained for every slight movement, every breath or whisper of an attack. They feinted in turn, each tasting the air, and knowing that the first strike could very well be the last. The flash of action came late to Connor’s mind, yet instinct and reflex did not fail him, his spirit scenting the death to come and howling its challenge.

He had never faced another with a hidden blade, and thus misjudged the deflection of the light weapon. He struggled to compensate as he struck aside Haytham’s arm, only to find it coming for him again from the opposite direction.

The Assassin drew back sharply, and lunged for the other’s chest this time as the knife sang past his face. Haytham pivoted to avoid him, the matched blades flashing as closing fangs between them, but neither connected.

He swept to his father’s right in an attempt to reach his blind side, but an arm struck his throat as if a coiled serpent, adeptly driving him back. Connor grunted as he recoiled, blinking once before realizing with alarm that he could no longer breathe. His wolf spirit thrashed once, a whining growl torn from it.

Lent to momentary terror and anger, the Assassin threw his entire weight upon his enemy, his own hidden blade biting mercilessly and tearing deep. It was only as they both fell and tumbled apart, that Connor lifted a hand to his supposedly slitted throat, and realized blankly that Haytham had only struck him with his opposite hand, and not with a blade.

Suddenly there was stillness, and the stench of heart’s blood filled the windless air.

“I should have killed you long ago,” Haytham remarked softly, a hand pressed reflexively – though uselessly – upon the gash on his throat, as he moved as best he could into a kneeling position. “Been rid of you before so many others were made to pay for my mistakes.”

Connor straightened into a crouch as well, though he only stared off to one side, his words equally quiet. “Was I a mistake, father?”

A barely audible scoff. “You, the Assassin, who brought my years of work to ruin? Who would one moment slaughter my brothers, then infuriatingly bleat innocence the next?”

The Mohawk said nothing, supposing he could not have expected anything different from the man, even in these final moments. His wolf settled passively by the prone figure, its tail stirring the dust. He did not expect Haytham to weep.

Connor lifted his gaze, studying the dusk just visible through the fire-rotten ceiling, and taking the stretched silence patiently. However, the next statement caught him off guard, and his brow furrowed as he determinedly kept his eyes only on the sky.

“...A disappointment perhaps, son, but no, never a mistake.”

Those words were the last to stir the ashes, and weighed the cold night air for too long after. The pain was distant, dulled as if wounds upon scarred flesh. Connor shut his eyes to the world and wallowed into this now familiar loss, enfolding the ache into his heart.

His final conflict was severed, and with its passing, nothing more remained.

Ending.

**Author's Note:**

> Despite all my shortcomings, I hope you enjoyed the story nonetheless. My sincere thanks to everyone who has read or offered comments and kudos.


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